ABSTRACT
The relationship between Iran and the United States has been troubled for decades. In the view of many Iranians, the troubles came into sharp focus with a CIA-backed coup against Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddeq in 1953. Many Americans would point to the Iranian Revolution of 1979 as a watershed. In that year, Islamist militants occupied the US embassy in Tehran and captured sixty-six Americans, fifty-two of whom were held hostage for 444 days. The United States broke off diplomatic relations with Iran in 1980 and has not restored them since. However, relations between the two countries were not always so difficult. Prerevolutionary Iran under Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was largely pro-Western in orientation and even maintained close ties with Israel. Even given the radical reversal of Iranian foreign policy in the postrevolutionary Islamic Republic of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, Iranian policy objectives have modulated over time under successive administrations. In this chapter, Manochehr Dorraj considers how the Iran-Iraq War (1980–1988) drove a wedge between Iran and moderate Arab regimes such as Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia (which all supported Iraq) and strengthened Iran’s regional alliance with Syria, as well as with radical Palestinian groups opposed to the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), such as Hamas. A major objective of the Islamic Republic was to empower populist and radical Shiite groups, commonly in opposition to secular Sunni Arab governments. With the death of Ayatollah Khomeini, President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani sought to rebuild relations with Arab states in the region. President Mohammad Khatami continued and expanded Rafsanjani’s efforts to reach out to Iran’s neighbors and the rest of the world. Khatami condemned the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks against the United States, handed over a number of al-Qaeda members for trial, and contributed funds for the reconstruction of Afghanistan. For its pains, however, Iran (with Iraq and North Korea) was labeled a member of the “axis of evil” by US President George W. Bush. That rebuff by the United States weakened Iranian moderates and helped set the stage for the election of the hard-liner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who turned to Russia and China for support, solidified relations with Syria as well as Hamas and Hezbollah, and demonstrated a vituperative hostility toward Israel.
