ABSTRACT
In early April 1980, the United States officially ended diplomatic relations with Iran; the Iranian embassy on Massachusetts Avenue in Washington, DC, was closed and the Iranian diplomatic personnel departed. Two and a half weeks later, eight US Sea Stallion RH-53D helicopters left the aircraft carrier Nimitz lying off the Iranian south-eastern coast and headed toward Iranian airspace to begin a “rescue mission” of the US personnel held hostage in Tehran. A hundred years of diplomatic relations came to an abrupt end, and, for the first time, a US military force had invaded Iran. Now, a decade later, the embassy remains closed and US-Iran relations fluctuate from white-hot hostility to open diplomatic disdain.
