What are the reasons of sour diplomatic relations between Iran and USA?

Question

What are the reasons of sour diplomatic relations between Iran and USA?

Answer 1

It all dates back to when the first British imperialist discovered oil in Iran, on the southern coast of the Persian Gulf. There he started Anglo-Persian Oil (later to become known as Anglo-Iranian Oil, and then in more modern times as British Petrol or just BP)

Now, I know your question refers specifically to Americans, so why am I talking about the British? Hold on, I'll get there.

The English-run company took advantage of Iran's then-current status as an absolute monarchy and paid their Iranian workers less than subsistence wages and gave them miserable living conditions. Worse yet, they cooked the books to convince the Iranian government that their taxes and contractual cut were paid off when in fact the English CEO and CXO were laundering what is now equivalent to millions of dollars into interests back in England.

When the Iranians discovered in a police raid the level of corruption in the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in 1951, they decided to nationalize their oil industry. Mohammed Mossadegh, a man who came to power in spite of the Shah (king) and through his nationalism and populism, argued that since AIOC had already broken their agreement, that nationalizing the industry was fair. He recinded AIOC's ability to drill and sent all the English home.

When the British government found out, they were outraged. AIOC was, at the time, a tremendous cash cow for all of Britain, and its cessation of operations would be a massive blow to the economy.

Quoting Wikipedia on the issue:

That summer, American diplomat Averell Harriman came to Iran to try to negotiate a compromise between Mossedegh and the British. His plea for help from the Shah was met with the reply that "in the face of public opinion, there was no way he [the Shah] could say a word against nationalization."[13] Harriman called a press conference in Tehran were he read a statement calling for `reason as well as enthusiasm` in confronting the crisis. "As soon as those words were out of his mouth, one journalist jumped to his feet and shouted, `We and the Iranian people all support Premier Mossadegh and oil nationalization!` The others began cheering and then marched out of the room. Harriman was left alone, shaking his head in dismay."

Britain would eventually convince the US Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, that the nationalization of the oil industry in Iran was the result of Iran coming under Soviet power. The world was still in the thick of the Cold War, and the fear of communism was enough to motivate any American. President Truman was approached by the British MI-5 multiple times but refused to allow Americans to intervene in foreign affairs covertly. Luckily for the British, and not so luckily for the people of Iran, Dwight Eisenhower was not so restrained.

Dwight Eisenhower gave Operation Ajax the green light. An American CIA agent - grandson of Theodore Roosevelt, Kermit Roosevelt Jr - along with several British agents and various native crime bosses and disloyal soldiers all moved deep into Tehran using forged documents and set up a plan to change the government in Iran.

Using subterfuge tactics, disinformation, and mob politics, they forced Mohammed Mossadegh out of the capitol and into the countryside while a puppet General declared Mossadegh an enemy of the state because he opposed the Shah. For a few years Iran had relegated its King to the background and Mohammed Mossadegh had led as a beacon of democracy in the Middle East. All of a sudden, though, the Iranians were told that they would not be rid of their King so easily. Though it was not reported, all Iranians were gradually coming to realize that it was the United States of America and its British allies who had taken away the government they had clamored for.

Within a few years things had grown terrible. The Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi was mad with power and determined to make Iran a "westernized" nation, just as Turkey had done. He outlawed the traditional Muslim garb that people in Iran had worn for centuries. He spent millions of taxpayer rials on gala celebrations and fast cars. All the political parties that had existed before evaporated, leaving only the political party he'd invented. Tens of thousands of people were locked up in his secret prisons. People would disappear and never be heard from again.

In the 1970s, however, most of Iran had had enough of the Shah and almost everyone was in agreement that the Shah needed to be replaced. The problem was... with what? For a brief period there were dozens of factions struggling to both overthrow the Shah and fill the vaccuum of power. Muslims who felt that the Shah had ignored their religion, communists who believed that the economic goals of the working-class man had been overlooked, even republicans who wanted to reinstate a democratic form of government.

Then there was the Iran-Iraq War. The war would be long and brutal, with Iraq using chemical and biological weapons that still to this day wreak havoc on the people of western Iran and eastern Iraq, as well as most of Kurdistan.

The war lasted eight years - longer than the entirety of World War II.

Saddam Hussein attacked Iran when he did for several reasons. At the time he was bidding for the title of "Leader of the Arab World", and wanted to show a decisive victory against a non-Arab nation. Iran is a nation of Aryans, not Arabs, and their military and economic dominance in the area had become a point of contention. Also, when the nations were broken up after Ottoman rule, a large swath of land known as Khuzestan was made part of Iran, though historically it had been part of Iraq. The land contained many natural resources that Saddam Hussein wanted for his nation.

When Hussein attacked, without warning, and with devastating results, the vacuum of power in Iran was quickly filled with an Islamic Republic. Muslims have made up the vast majority of Iranians for centuries, and it made sense that they would come out on top. What no one expected was that the Shia Ayatollahs would be as brutal and ruthless in their pursuit of a "clean" Iran as the Shah.

One of the first acts of the new Islamic Republic was to hold everyone at the American Embassy hostage for a very long time. This was known as the Iranian Hostage Crisis and became THE defining moment for the American perception of Iranians. It was during this event that it was revealed that Ronald Regan's administration - most specifically a General named Oliver North - had been selling weapons to Iranians in exchange for hostages. The arming of internal insurgent groups in Iran did not make Americans more sympathetic to Iranians.

After brutal trench warfare, the Iraqis launching sarin gas attacks on civilian targets, and the Iranians advancing further than the ground they lost, the dust settled. Iranians realized that thousands of lives had been lost on both sides thanks to American, Chinese, Soviet, French, and British weapons over a piece of land given to them by a dead Turk.

Thus we come to the present day. Americans have proven time and time again to the Iranian people that they will act with force to secure their own best interests long before they will do anything for an Iranian. Iranians have also proven to Americans to be volatile, prone to rapid swings in public opinion, and insatiably ambitious. Their current ambitions of designing and manufacturing their own cutting-edge weapons of war to match the technology of the United States, becoming a nuclear power, and even starting a space program, all seem dangerous to the US.

To the US it's not a matter of Iran becoming powerful, but of that power being wielded by illegitimate governments and existing in a highly unstable part of the world. As Iran sees it, they have a right to grow and expand; the risks are Iran's to take and not America's to deny them. This fundamentally opposed view will most likely never dematerialize.

Answer 2

The events that led to the US can celling diplomatic relations with Iran started with the Islamic Revolution of 1979.  Prior to that, relations with Iran were very good considering the unreset in that part of the world.  

Overrunning our embassy and taking the staff hostage for over a year.  Torture, mock executions, etc. were common for them for 444 days.

Using terror cells to kill over 200 Marines on a peacekeeping mission in Beirut.

Using terror cells to kidnap Americans in the Middle East

Mining the Persian Gulf.

Financing, arming, and training Hezbollah (Lebanon), Hamas (Palestinian Territories), and Shite insurgents (Iraq).

Regular threats to close down the Straits of Hormuz (entrance to the Persian Gulf).

Answer 3

Rob B said it best.

Answer 4

Gee I don't know mabey we should start with the embassy hostages and go from there? You know like declaring jihad against the US, or perhaps manufacturing and distributing bombs to the Iraqi militants, or the blatant financial support of dudes like Osama Bin Laden or...

Answer 5

We think that we are always always right about everything, and the TV puppets sell us propaganda and we bite hook line and sinker.  I live in the U.S. and wish to be no where else in the world but we were in the wrong with Iraq and now Iran.  I honestly can give you an entire page full of facts and reasons behind the situations occurring there and here.  But I'm not going to bother, because it seems that people love to hate facts and i know that even though i will list facts people are going to give me thumbs down and battle facts with TV propaganda.

Answer 6

maybe you are too young to remember the Iranians storming the American Embassy and taking like 400 people hostage and Irans support of terrorists groups like Hamas and Hezbollah

Answer 7

some idiot leaders

Answer 8

It started off with a British Intelligence service , SIS  and the American CIA operation,  AJAX.

In 1954 the CIA was involved in destroying the first democraticaly elected government in IRAN, over oil.

Google the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.

This brought in two decades of a dictatorship under the US Backed Shah.

What followed wan an anti-American backlash that toppled the Shah in 1979 .

More blowback was the spread of  an Islamic militancy, And thanks to Eisenhower and subsequent presidents who supported the Shaw, there is the new hardline theocracy

that is forever hostile to the US.

We created this problem.  It was all about resources, i.e. oil.

Sound familiar ?

Answer 9

Go back at least to the 1919 mindset of Lord Balfour who was responsible for the Balfour Declaration in 1917 which arrogantly chopped the Middle East into patches of contention.  Also look into the shenanigans of Kermit Roosevelt, Jr.,and his sponsors,  focusing on the year 1953.

Consider also, never confusing the amazing Iranian people with the few ruthless power elites who presently run the show.  

Consider also the irony of the leaders of both countries claiming that God speaks to them and tells them what to do.