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Part I
USA and Vienna Nuclear Agreement
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1 Iran’s relations with the United States
Current conditions in historical perspective
Shireen T. Hunter
After the coming to power of the Trump administration in January 2017, Iran’s relations with the United States reached new lows. Under Donald Trump’s leadership, on May 8, 2018, the United States withdrew from the agreement regarding Iran’s nuclear program known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) signed in July 2015 between Iran and the so-called 5 + 1 (US, Russia, China, France and Germany) as a prelude to imposing new and more stringent sanctions and the adoption of a harsher approach towards Tehran. The statement by the US national security adviser, John Bolton, that America will “squeeze them [Iran] until the pips squeak” sums up the United States’ new strategy on Iran.1
However, the American policy of pressuring Iran is nothing new. Since the advent of the so-called Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979, which led to the fall of the country’s secular, modernist and pro-Western monarchy, the two states have been at loggerheads. The post-revolutionary Iranian regime has been openly and virulently anti-American, even surpassing the Arab revolutionary governments of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. More seriously, the revolutionary government, or at least its most hardline elements, have made anti-Americanism and the so-called anti-imperialist struggle (Istikbar Setizi) the foundation of its political legitimacy as well as the defining characteristic of the Islamic Revolution. The statement by Sardar Muhammad Ali Jafari, commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), that should Iran talk to America nothing would remain of the Islamic Revolution, shows the centrality of anti-Americanism in the Iranian revolutionaries’ ideology and world view.
It was this mindset of Iran’s new leadership that led a group of hardline revolutionaries to orchestrate the hostage taking operations in November 1979. In this operation, 54 Americans, including 52 diplomats, were held hostage for 444 days. This experience was so traumatic and humiliating for the United States that its legacy to a great extent still shapes American attitudes towards Tehran. Those revolutionaries who took US diplomats hostage were aware of the impact that their act would have on Iran’s future relations with the United States. In fact, the two principal goals of the hostage takers were to undermine the position of those Iranian politicians, including Iran’s first post-revolutionary prime minister, Mehdi Bazargan, who wanted to retain working relations with Washington, and to prevent normal relations between Iran and America.2
However, it would be a mistake to assume that Iran’s problems with America only started after the Iranian Revolution. On the contrary, Iran’s relations with the United States were never as close and free of tension that nostalgia for a more peaceful era would like us to believe. In fact, the Iranian revolution itself was, at least in part, facilitated by growing tensions between Iran and America and the change in American approach towards the Shah’s regime, especially under the Carter administration (1977–1981). Therefore, to understand properly the current state of Iran’s relations with America, they should be analyzed in their historical context and in light of fundamental geopolitical and systemic factors that have shaped these relations since the very early days of the two states’ interaction. Such an historical and systemic approach would offer a more nuanced account of Iranian–American relations. It will also help to identify better the most likely directions in which they might evolve in the future.
Iran’s search for a counterweight to Britain and Russia: looking to America
Iran first became interested in America in the mid-nineteenth century, during the brief premiership of the reformist prime minister, Mirza Taghi Khan Amir Kabir. Iran of the nineteenth century was caught in a relentless competition between Tsarist Russia and the British Empire. The Russo-British competition made the Iranian government incapable of independently running its own affairs, and also hampered seriously its economic development. Charles Issawi, after citing certain of Iran’s disadvantages in terms of economic development as compared to Egypt and the Ottoman Empire, argued that notwithstanding these disadvantages, the most important cause of Iran’s economic backwardness was “the stultifying effect of Anglo-Russian rivalry.” He added that, because Iran was on the way to India, Britain viewed it as “a glacier to be kept denuded of any facilities which might make it easier for the Russians to advance through it to the subcontinent.” According to Issawi, the Russians for their part “were most reluctant to expose their southern flank to British economic and political penetration.”3 Because of this situation, plus the British policy of infringing on Iran’s rights in the Persian Gulf and in its southern provinces since the mid-nineteenth century, finding a counterweight to British and Russian presence, which under Reza Shah Pahlavi came to be known as the Third Power Strategy, has been a hallmark of Iran’s foreign policy, albeit without much success.4
From early on, America was one of the states Iran looked towards to balance the British and Russian influence. For example, one of Amir Kabir’s main objectives in establishing contacts with the American legation in Constantinople in 1851 was his desire to purchase ships from America to patrol Iranian shores, including against the slave trade that the British used as an excuse to infringe on Iranian coasts.5 Iran even requested American naval forces to help protect its merchant marine and certain islands and ports “from the preponderance of an unnamed power,” which obviously meant Britain.6 However, nothing came out of these contacts, although in 1856 the two sides signed a friendship treaty.7 Iran’s recourse to America as a balancer of British and Russian influence was based on a belief that because of its own struggle against British colonialism, the United States was a benevolent country sympathetic towards the states suffering from colonial or semi-colonial conditions.
The main reasons for the failure of Iran’s efforts to enlist America’s help were the United States’ lack of interest at the time in far-flung regions such as the Middle East and the prevalence of a degree of isolationist mood in Washington. Meanwhile, Iran’s weakness, economically and otherwise, made it an unappealing market for American goods. In short, at the time and in view of global conditions, Iran did not hold any intrinsic economic or strategic value for America, a situation which would continue in the future. Instead, even at that early stage of their contacts, whatever limited interest Iran held for America derived from its broader interests and preoccupations, as illustrated by the views of the American representative in Constantinople; he saw Iran as a “serviceable potential ally against Great Britain.”8 Despite the Iranians’ view of America as a non-exploitative power, the United States was keen to obtain the same economic and political privileges in Iran as the other powers had.
In short, as early as the mid-nineteenth century, the Iranians’ view of America as a benevolent and non-exploitative power different from other great powers was naive and wrong. The realization of this fact in the following decades and into the twentieth century would constitute a main reason for the change in many Iranians’ attitude towards the United States. The depth of some Iranians’ bitterness towards America was partly the consequence of their over-idealization of the United States. Nevertheless, on two occasions, 1919 and 1943, the United States did intervene on Iran’s behalf. In 1919, the Americans told the British that Iran should be allowed to address the Paris Peace Conference and to raise its grievances. However, their support was lukewarm and they abandoned Iran soon in the face of stiff British opposition. In 1943, they were more successful in getting the allied commitment to Iran’s territorial integrity. However, this agreement was largely because all concerned powers did not want Iran to be dominated by a single power rather than because of altruistic sentiments. Instead, this approach was a new version of the classical Russo-British policy of preventing Iran’s domination by their rival.
In short, America continued the British policy of keeping Iran out of Soviet control and as “a serviceable ally,” this time against the USSR. Thus America saw Iran as a useful instrument at the service of its broader and more intrinsic strategic interests, notably combatting Soviet expansionism in the Middle East. Therefore, the instrumentalist approach towards Iran became another major feature of the United States’ policy towards Iran.
The myth of US–Iran alliance: 1953–1979
The Iranians, including their politicians, retained their idealistic view of America until the 1953 coup d’état. To illustrate, during the Anglo-Iranian crisis over Iran’s nationalization of its oil industry, Iran put excessive hope in America’s support for its cause. This again showed Iran’s naivety. Iran failed to see that the United States as the major capitalist power in the world, with far-flung economic and investment interests throughout the globe, would not countenance arbitrary nationalizations by local governments. Thus, instead of supporting the Mossadegh government in its dispute with Britain, the United States joined Britain and staged a coup against Mossadegh. For similar reasons, in 1954, America staged a coup against Guatemala’s Jacobo Arbenz because,...
