The United States and Iran have had bitter relations for decades. After the bombs, a new chapter begins

Washington – Now comes a new chapter in American-Iranian relations, whether for better or worse.

For almost half a century, the world witnessed an enmity for ages-threats, conspiracy, toxic rhetoric between the “great Satan” of the Iranian tradition and the “axis of evil” of the Middle East disorder, in the eyes of America.

Now we have an American president who says, of all things, “God bless Iran”.

This change of tone, as ephemeral, came after the intense American bombardment of Iranian nuclear development sites this week, an attack on reprisal in Iran, but retained against an American military base in Qatar and the provisional cease-fire negotiated by President Donald Trump in the War of Israel-Iran.

The American attack on three targets inflicted serious damage, but did not destroy them, according to an American intelligence report, contradicting Trump’s assertion that the attack “erased” the Iran’s nuclear program.

Here are some questions and answers on the long history of bad blood between the two countries:

In the first eyeshadow of a ceasefire agreement, even before Israel and Iran seem on board, Trump was exulted in the realization. “May God bless Israel,” he posted on social networks. “May God bless Iran.” He also wanted blessings on the Middle East, America and the world.

When he became clear that all hostilities had not stopped immediately, he put himself in the juron instead.

“We have essentially two countries that have been fighting for so long and so hard that they don’t know what they are doing,” he said on the camera.

At that time, Trump was particularly critical of Israel, the ally of the Constant US, for having seemed less attached to the break in the fighting than the country that has shouted “death to America” ​​for generations and has been accused of trying to assassinate it.

In two words, Operation Ajax.

It was the 1953 coup d’etat orchestrated by the CIA, with British support, which overthrew the democratically elected democratic government and returned power to Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. The Western powers had feared the rise in Soviet influence and the nationalization of the Iranian oil industry.

The Shah was an American strategic ally that has repaired official relations with Washington. But the grievances were simmering among the Iranians on his autocratic reign and his inclination against the interests of America.

All of this boiled in 1979 when the Shah fled the country and the theocratic revolutionaries took control, imposing their own hard line.

Deeply.

On November 4, 1979, with an anti-American feeling at a fever, Iranian students took 66 American and citizens’ diplomats hostage and held more than 50 in captivity for 444 days.

It was a humiliating show for the United States and President Jimmy Carter, who ordered months of secret rescue mission in the hostage crisis in Iran. In Operation Eagle Claw, eight naval helicopters and six Air Force transport aircraft were sent to appointments in the Iranian desert. A sandstorm abandoned the mission and eight soldiers died when a helicopter crashed on a C-20120 supply plane.

Diplomatic ties were broken in 1980 and remained broken.

Iran released the hostages a few minutes after the presidential inauguration of Ronald Reagan on January 20, 1981. It was just long enough to make sure that Carter, bogged down in the crisis for more than a year, would not see them released in his mandate.

No. But the last big one was at sea.

On April 18, 1988, the American navy sank two Iranian ships, damaged another and destroyed two surveillance platforms in its greatest surface commitment since the Second World War. The Praying Mantis operation was in retaliation against the extraction of the USS Samuel B. Roberts in the Persian Gulf four days earlier. Ten sailors were injured and the explosion left a gaping hole in the hull.

Not officially, but essentially.

The United States has provided economic assistance, intelligence and military technology adjacent to Iraq, fearing that an Iranian victory would spread instability through the region and to the tension in oil supplies. Iran and Iraq emerged from the 1980-1988 war without a clear winner and the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives, while relations with the United States-Iraq have been fractured in a spectacular way in the years that followed.

An example of American -Iranian cooperation in a way – an illegal and secret, until it is.

Shortly after the United States has appointed Iran a sponsor of state terrorism in 1984 – a status that remains – it appeared that America illicitly sold arms to Iran. One goal was to win the release of hostages in Lebanon under the control of Hezbollah supported by Iran. The other was to collect secret funds for rebels in Nicaragua in contempt of an American ban to support them.

President Ronald Reagan has made his way through the scandal but emerged unscathed – legally if not reputation.

Only four: Iran, North Korea, Cuba and Syria.

The designation makes these countries the target of general sanctions. The designation of Syria is being examined in the light of the fall of the government of Bashar Assad.

President George W. Bush in his 2002 speech on the state of the Union. He spoke five months after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and the year before launching the invasion of Iraq on the bad premise that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

He distinguished Iran, North Korea and Saddam Iraq and said: “States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, armed to threaten world peace.”

In response, Iran and some of its anti-American and allies of the region sometimes took an informal coalition an axis of resistance.

Some, such as Hezbollah and Hamas, are degraded due to the fierce and supported assault on Israel. In Syria, Assad fled safely in Moscow after losing power against the rebels once linked to Al-Qaida, but now carefully welcomed by Trump.

In Yemen, the Houthi rebels who attacked commercial ships in the Red Sea and promised a common cause with Palestinians were bombed by the United States and Great Britain. In Iraq, the armed Shiite factions controlled or supported by Iran are still operating and attracting periodic attacks from the United States.

In 2015, President Barack Obama and other powers concluded an agreement with Iran to limit its nuclear development in exchange for sanctions. Iran has agreed to get rid of an enriched stock of uranium, dismantle most centrifuges and give international inspectors more access to see what it was doing.

Trump began the agreement in his 2016 campaign and suppressed it two years later as president, imposing a “maximum” sanctions campaign. He argued that the agreement has only delayed the development of nuclear weapons and did nothing to restrict the aggression of Iran in the region. The Iranian nuclear program has resumed over time and, according to the inspectors, has accelerated in recent months.

Trump’s exit from the nuclear agreement caused a warning from Hassan Rouhani, then Iranian president, in 2018: “America must understand that peace with Iran is the mother of all peace. And war with Iran is the mother of all wars. ”

In January 2020, Trump ordered the drone strike who killed Qassem Soleimani, the best commander in Iran, when he was in Iraq.

Then Iran came after him, according to President Prosecutor Joe Biden, Merrick Garland. A few days after Trump won last year’s elections, the Ministry of Justice filed charges against an Iranian who is still in his country and two alleged partners in New York.

“The Ministry of Justice has charged an asset of the Iranian regime, which was responsible for the regime to lead a network of criminal partners to continue Iran’s assassination plots against its targets, including President elected Donald Trump,” said Garland.

Now Trump is looking for peace at the table after ordering bombs that fell on Iran and offering blessings.

It is potentially the mother of all reversals.

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This story has been updated to correct that the Syrian rebels who came to power after Bashar Assad fled to Moscow had been linked to Al-Qaida, not the Islamic State.