BackStory; The U.S. and Iran: A Brief History of an Often Tense Relationship

major funding for backstory provided by anonymous donor the national down for the canaries and josephine robert cornell memorial foundation somehow welcome to back story to show that explains the history behind the headlines and brian balogh if you knew to the podcast my colleagues and here's jo ann friedman they think can we and myself are all historic and each week we explore the history of the topic it's been in the news and as this week one topic in particular that has dominated the headlines iran briefing is to ride the shock waves from the us drive in iraq that killed his asaf says in two thousand and five which is in a lot of planning imminent attacks on american diplomats and service members that was parliament it's a death to america from on balance would prevent american soil announcing they will no longer abide by the uranium enrichment limits the

twenty fifteen nuclear deal a move which could put a wrong course to accumulate enough fuel for an atomic bomb by now you probably know the timeline of what happened during this rocky intense week last weekend an american airstrike killed iranian general kassem so money at the direction of president trump iran vowed to retaliate and much more than a dozen missiles at two military bases in iraq housing american troops in response to the attack president trump addressed the nation on wednesday and said the us will impose new economic sanctions on iran the fact that we have this great military equipment however does not mean we have to use it we do not want to use of american strength both military and economic is the best deterrent so what comes next is this the end of the skirmish was only the

beginning a lot of people are worried that the nie states would respond very harshly to any kind of counter attack by iran but iran by really striking these he says in a fashion that left no casualties i think provided trump with the off ramp to call it a draw ascend to die is a professor at indiana university's hamilton will go school of global and international studies is also an author of becoming enemies us iran relations and the iran iraq war nineteen seventy nine to nineteen eighty eight and just a note we recorded this episode on wednesday and thursday but this continues to be but developing story of sendai says this wasn't the first time the united states considered targeting general so money the previous two administrations you bought ministration and george w bush administration and each had their chance at taking him out and they decided that the political consequences of that would not be worth it would expose american

troops to greater risk in the region and the fallout would really not play well for american interests in the region as a whole but trump in characteristic fashion pick the most extreme option available at the military present it's president trump with a set of options and put seller money as a target as one of the options that really the back of the list not thinking that you pick it out we don't know whether there was a pushback by his national security team or a d generals from the pentagon explaining to him what the fallout could possibly be it doesn't help that a day before that the iran supreme leader ayatollah khomeini tweeted a very harsh twitter wreck that adds trump saying that he was hated throughout the region and that he couldn't do anything against the glorious islamic republic and tj for my boat money and i based on my understanding of counsel for i think he

chose that extreme option because he was especially irritated or taunted by that tweet that the supreme leader had made just the day before time will tell what so money's death continue economic sanctions mean for the middle east but as we contemplate what the future holds for the us and iran we also want to assess how we got here this tense relationship stretches way beyond just the events of this past week so what can the us in iran's history teach us about the current situation i asked hussein to take us all the way back to nineteen fifty three when the us helped orchestrate a coup to overthrow iran's prime minister mohamed morsi sacked mossad that i decided to push for the nationalization of iran's oil against the british who controlled iran's oil resources and and that pushed the brits were not getting anywhere and it was very clear that iran i had every possible right to renegotiate that deal this you

have to understand was in the context of the rise of the colonization of movements throughout the us so corporate worlds and was that that was seen as a kind of a folk hero of many of those third world movements initially he had a friend and president truman in the united states because he nice it's very much favored that self determination drive by many of these countries and the truman administration had rebuffed requests by the british government and british intelligence to co sponsor a coup an overthrow was set up and so the british didn't get far with truman and truman in fact invited receptive to come to the united states and where was that that addressed a joint session of congress and made his country's case along the lines of the declaration of independence and the american constitution but the british kept pushing for this and here there's a very interesting historical tidbits that is oftentimes overlooked they lead to american barristers or lawyers for the anglo iranian oil company in this

period where john foster dulles and allen welsh dallas the dulles brothers and i would go on to become powerful figures in the eisenhower administration they had been lawyers for and were running old company when mossad that was pushing for the naturalization drive and they were in fact one of the lobbyists for that oil company in washington trying to get the truman administration to sponsor this operation in business out there inning get far until eisenhower comes into office and eisenhower initially rebuffed their requests as well and in a very provocative episodes they finally resorted to basically pushing the president to drink it critical whiskey and consumer grade do our goal in the oval office and eleventh hour signing off on operation that would approve of the coup against the sabbath saline ice states co sponsors this who with the british secret intelligence agency in my sex and the most at that is overthrown through the supply of some funds

and some organization on the ground by royalist forces in nineteen fifty three and my mother is a sharp son of the exiled reza shark comes back and she becomes the autocratic royal head of state in iran there after annie's hair any blowback to that in iran itself not immediately although the episodes was so rancid domestically that the legitimacy of the shark from the get go was very much undermined so the initial blowback was that iran's fractious politics really was driven largely on account of foreign interference and especially american and british nefarious designs on iran's sovereignty and that memory really got bottled up and became a teen driver oh this slow steady but eventual rise of political islam not just in iran but throughout much of the middle east and that legacy obviously culminates

in the nineteen seventy nine revolution well tell me a little bit about that nineteen seventy nine revolution and nineteen seventy nine you had surveyed will tai prongs pluralistic are a revolutionary movements of leftists of nationalist of secularists islamists as well as fanatical islamists who at all unite it's in the cause of overthrowing the shah through a popular revolt the sharp saw this coming and departed iran on account of a health check with his doctors and the west and never returned and of course it was discovered soon after that he had cancer and was dying anyway but in the period that he vacated and left khomeini returned from exile i'm from the suburbs of paris of all places ayatollah khomeini has become the de facto leader spiritual leader of this revolution and had been thought by many of these participants stats he would remain in that

role throughout but one seed it was put in exile by the sharp first he was exiled to a rack where saddam immediately exile them out because he had a big shia population and didn't want activities against hand being fed by humming his presence there as well so the ship them off due to paris and the french took amendment he was in the suburbs of paris recording tapes and so when shaw left the country on this holiday khomeini returned triumphantly and immediately declared that he would be seeking to establish an islamic republic and i know that the united states supported a very sharp to the end but what was their attitude towards khomeini initially it's remarkable that they knew very little about him one of my favorite cia declassified documents that we got our hands on is this kind of frantic back and forth memoranda better

going inside the carter administration's national security circles and at one point one of the key principles blakeney writes a memoir one is an ayatollah let alone who was ayatollah khomeini story of massive intelligence failure because khomeini had been seen as this kind of very parochial player or someone on westerners really didn't understand to declare chapter of the senate always been on the margins of iranian politics the british understood the significance of clerical leadership in iran much better but they seem to not have communicated that well to their american counterparts either side really got them off by surprise the iranian hostage crisis which also occurred in nineteen seventy nine what triggered it and what were the dynamics behind you know that episode is still a bit murky in terms of what exactly triggered that initially iranian students who were part of this radicalized

factions that support it khomeini had been staging a sit in outside the us embassy in protest of the carter administration's decision to allow the shop for a medical visit into the united states and once that happens and then news reached the students were sitting out there as some of the more radical ones started literally scaling the walls of the us embassy and from there on events kind of took over and the civilian governments the provisional government of mehdi was argon who were tenant mix of secular nationalists but believed modern as muslims were really wary of khomeini started to really go and try to talk down khomeini get him to issue a statement asking the students to back down khomeini immediately saw an opportunity in this to isolate this provisional government and really embolden has a rule more so in fact support it the students move and that was seen as a green light by them to go actually

and break through the doors of the embassy and take the hostages and that hostage crisis lasted for over a year was this instrumental in hardening american attitudes towards iran i would expect it would be yes i think that's the same you were most potent events in shaping the narrative of us iran relations in america especially the hostage crisis i think for the first time you have to understand also this was the first major televised antagonism between isis had encountered the television show nightline was literally launched the day hostage crisis began and had a countdown every night and the crisis i was one for a forum in forty four days and each night it will be updates and nj the image of kind of these fanatical students chanting death to america oh and khomeini eastern figure in profile of being shown as this kind of

menacing i have to love that image has very much she says a generation of american policymakers in their outlook towards iran let alone the general american public what the nineteen eighties were dominated by the war between iran and a rack an incredibly bloody and long war and the united states took the rocks side in that war why is that this is a complex story because although the nih says initially took the side of iraq it's official policy it would evolve to become a supporter of the war of attrition between iran and iraq so that book alone would be left weekend at the end of this ordeal but

initially yes isn't a side of iraq because iraq's invasion of iran to replace smack in the middle of the hostage crisis saddam invaded iran from its southeastern borders on september twenty second nineteen eighty but in subsequent interviews that i personally have done an oral history project that the co convenes in two thousand seven we come to understand that united states not only knew about this invasion ahead of time in fact green lighted saddam's advancements into iranian territory and even shared intelligence with the rocky military at this point and the reason they did this was because they want to pressure khamenei into submission by first release in the hostages but the larger rational that was driving us was that you know he sees was absolutely certain that khomeini would fall that khomeini's version of islamic

republic had no legs whatsoever inside iran they thought that and they asked if he would last half as long as most addictive as prime minister and they saw this as something that was really really into iranian society so they're not going to tolerate it well you wrote a book called up becoming enemies so i got ask you how you explain the iran contra affair where the united states actually sold arms to iran yes ants the reagan administration's relationship with khomeini's iran is fascinating because right off the bat eight starts in a transactional way the iranians if you remember held on to the hostages until the eve of reagan's inauguration and i was not an accident they wanted to really deliver the message that they were the reason why jimmy carter was humiliated and was driven out of office this was something that republican operatives and president reagan himself kind of

tacitly approved of and appreciate it they saw them as really kind of cunning transactional actors and they were not so the rational afterwards so the runner up or start to take off it wrong immediately starts to expand its military roll outside the bounds of its own territory by finding radical shia groups in iraq and in some eleven on khamenei was a kind of a transnational islamists who believe that the cause of exporting the iranian revolution was actually very important to the survival of the islamic republic itself so the way to safeguard this newfound country was to actually make sure that similar minded islamists throughout the region were nourished by the grace of this revolution so the founding of hezbollah was really important in this whole scenario and hezbollah obviously new reset about attacking

western targets but in the lebanese civil war are also really perfect at the habit of hostage taking and tj around nineteen eighty two the first waves of these hostage takings took place and eventually a more more hostages were routinely taken and released an the hostage taking of american personnel in southern lebanon was what triggered this arms for hostages deal as it was called mud basically the deal was that the eye states would sell arms to iran and use that money to fund anti sandinista contras in nicaragua which was against the law passed by congress and on top of all this to use the israelis as the middleman between iran and the united states so the top you have this kind of remarkable episode where the israelis are literally the

contact people into an iranian government and the united states and hezbollah obviously as holding on to the hostages and iranians are the party that immediately he convinces them to release the hostages in a way of nine eleven president bush referred to the iranians as axis of evil along with the rocker in north korea how was that message received in iran with a great duel shock and dismay especially since it arrived at a time when iran had been softening its outlook toward the west she recall in nineteen ninety six a reformist president reformist movement have emerged inside of iran headed by bahman talk to me who got elected in a landmark election in nineteen ninety seven on a platform of reforming the islamic republic and the nine eleven happens and tj the bush administration basically decides

to paint the entirety of the middle east of really muslim majority countries in the world with a broad brush by introducing binary such as you know you're either with us or against us and iran found itself in this very difficult position on actually caught any signaled to the americans if iran will do everything that it can in the campaign to get rid of the taliban in afghanistan which had not been friendly to iran iran in fact six months prior to nine eleven almost went to war against the taliban so you know these ironies work on it constantly pointed out by iranians and reformers and say look you know we are naturally more aligned with europe and the taliban are or saddam is what you need to listen to us and but then the bush administration basically decided to go on this ideological crusade all reading the world all what it thought to be terrorist regimes and it decided that iraq iran and north korea are going to be it's kind of the centerpiece of its project and huckabee was put in a difficult position

domestically because the hardliners were empowered as a result of this rhetoric and tj started to kind of go at hand by saying you know all these concessions that you've made to the westerners all this kind of rumbling you've done at the feet of liberal democracy and reforms et cetera this where you're getting a return for don't care about democracy in iran i'm all they want is to project american power and now they're going to exploit this moment so to what extent did that kind of buying you're a few of the world contribute to move iranian nuclear station program and the situation where again as we speak trump pulled out of the joint comprehensive plan of action the iranian nuclear deal and iran has said is they're going to begin processing of uranium again well it's fascinating you know iran's first nuclear sites were built by western engineers iran was part of eisenhower's atoms for peace program initiative and so

those facilities that had been cut and torments in enron for many years had remained so pretty much all the way up to you know the first year after the invasion of iraq in two thousand and three an idea timely mission iraq take place there is a very fascinating document in two thousand and three a letter was sent to the swiss embassy in tehran by the iranian government to the letter to swiss ambassador was that iran was willing to negotiate not only its role in the region and terms of finding radical islamist groups in london on in the palestinian territories which had been the subject of dispute between iran and israel and united states but that in fact it would also be open to shutting down its nuclear facilities forbid that letter and the list of kind of concessions by iran on it we're sensitive this was some bassett are on the eve of the iraq war because iranians had thought that this would be

you know i cakewalk for the american military just like the american ultra thought and that iran would be next at that point the bush administration was so triumphant in its rhetoric all regime change that it just dismissed the letter all together and iran sort of went back and just waited and dread but den dreck turn into amazement as america couldn't control the fallout over the invasion the looting that took place first and then the really the vast incompetence of the american military to be able to even sit your basic ministry's let alone provinces son and so iran's nuclear activity start to ramp up just around the time that the insurgency in iraq is spiking things are you know going out of control and iranians were really just as a maze as anyone else just how badly that war was managed by the bush administration and took advantage of that by going full throttle both in terms of their

conventional activities in the region and derek asymmetric and nuclear projects well you know you're absorbed for providing such a fascinating history is we're back to questions about the future of which historians are deathly not pay the big bucks to answer but i do want to get your sense of where iran is going with a nuclear program and my thinking about iran's nuclear program has always been that it is ultimately meant to be a bargaining chip between iran and western nations being the absence all direct diplomatic relations especially with the united states and we saw that basically be the case trivia while on the years iran had really changed its off to wards the amounts the

percentage needed for weapons grade uranium but it had stopped just short of bad because it now had the leverage to negotiate with the obama administration on a whole range of issues regarding its program and it succeeded in kind of reaching a kind of a nuclear deal that both recognize iran's rights for the first time like any other signatory to the non proliferation treaty to enrich uranium which was a big win for the iranians they just want the recognition that they were a normal country entitled to enriching uranium under specified limits as long as their facilities were monitored that's a rob the obama administration granted that privilege to them so iran managed to get that but then as a result of this kind of rising influence in the region after the iraq war it now had kind of once again a reinstated his position as a major regional player so it could always now oscillate it's being it's conventional capability hughes and the

threat of a kind of wmd program and i think that's where iran would like to state going into the future then it is a country that has you know nuclear power and it is operating within the limits set by international standards in that regard but also as conventional capabilities that if they are threatened and african kind of alive and fall back on its nuclear capabilities to negotiate its way up again so you were engaged in an oral history right now as i understand it the project is examining how iranians and americans feel about the relationship between the two countries can you tell me a little bit about this in higher even going about determining that sure so they're critical oral history workshop started in two thousand seven and was modeled after a similar project that looked at us soviet relations at the height of the cold war and the project was fundamentally about bringing

policymakers from both countries together in a neutral setting in a face to face exchange to explore missed opportunities or the possibilities all of our greater understanding moving forward and so we apply that model to us around religion starting in two thousand and seven by bringing former policymakers from iran and the united states to really examine decisionmaking first and foremost why did they made the decisions that they did what their perceptions were of the other side and how they viewed particular flashpoint says either opportunities or missed opportunities what surprised you the most stunning after a hard day's work of interviewing people in listening to when you're having a beer with a friend finish this sentence i can't believe the lack of empathy other part of their greatest superpower this

world has ever seen for much much weaker adversaries in the world i think the biggest takeaway for me has always been how difficult it seems to be for officials in washington to put themselves and the plays of others and see the world through their eyes and although that is proven to be the saving grace at and really during ominous flashpoints in the second of a twentieth century look at the cuban missile crisis for instance the lesson of just how important empathy is when it comes to foreign policy decision making seems to be lost when our disparities are at their greatness hussein denies a professor at indiana university's hamilton lugar school of global and international studies he is the author of becoming enemies us iran relations and the iran iraq war

nineteen seventy nine to nineteen eighty eight is that that's going to do it for today but you can keep the conversation going and what you'll find is expected to say anything else on facebook and twitter that's the tradition that it features support provided by an anonymous donor joseph cornell memorial foundation for the johns hopkins university and forty five additional support coffee and fresh ideas brian balogh is a

professor of history at the university of virginia and is this professor of the humanities and president emeritus of the university of richmond john freeman is a professor of history and american studies at yale university's mason associate professor of history at johns hopkins university's backstory was created by andrew wender for virginians united states