A mantra now says that Iran has been at war with the United States for forty-seven years.
The forty-seven-year figure apparently refers to the hostage-taking at the American embassy in Iran in November 1979. This lasted for 444 days. The hostages were released on the first day of Reagan’s presidency, January 20, 1980. If Reagan had been negotiating with the Iranian regime to assure that the hostages were not released before he became president, as many believe, if he was not committing treason, he was at least committing crimes. He, however, maintained that it was a mere coincidence that the hostages went home the day that he became president.
Iraq assumed Iran was weak enough after the 1979 abdication of the Shah that they invaded their neighbor. America provided logistical and intelligence support to Iraq and sold it materials that had both civil and military uses. Both Iraq and Iran suffered huge losses. Estimates indicate that over 250,000 Iranians were killed.
However, while we were supporting Iraq, we also were aiding Iran. Hezbollah in the early 1980s took and held American hostages in Lebanon. Tim Weiner writes in The Mission: The CIA in the 21st Century (2025) that the hostage-taking “led President Reagan to try to ransom the American captives by selling weapons to Hezbollah’s military and financial sponsor, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, igniting the biggest White House scandal since Watergate.”
This was soon followed by further arms sales to Iran in what became known as the Iran-Contra affair. Congress had prohibited continued funding for the Contras who were trying to overthrow the government of Nicaragua. The Reagan administration wished to get around this restriction and sold arms to Iran planning to use the proceeds to aid the Contras. Several dozen Reagan officials, but not Reagan, were indicted. Eleven convictions followed. Some were reversed on appeal. The rest were pardoned by George H.W. Bush, with the special counsel saying Bush was protecting himself.
No one, however, was charged with treason. However, if, as the mantra has it, Iran has been at war with us for forty-seven years, Iran was our enemy when the sales happened. If so, the arms deliveries were a textbook example of giving aid and comfort to the enemy. Now you can believe that Reagan knew nothing about selling arms to Iran and consider him incredibly incompetent as a president. Or you can take the more obvious path and believe that Reagan knew what his administration was doing in one of its more important foreign policy initiatives. In that case, the current mantra is labelling Reagan a traitor. Incompetent or traitor? Which is it?
Whichever you choose, Trump’s statement that no president except him has addressed Iran is wrong. Reagan did. As these and later information show, there were several times when we were allies with Iran. However, Trump is not known for his grasp of history, even relatively recent history.
Weiner reports that Iranians hated al Qaeda and the Taliban. As a result, Iran aided the CIA-backed Northern Alliance in Afghanistan. Furthermore, the CIA had helped Iran to arm the Bosnian Muslims during 1990s. Under the principle of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend, America and Iran were partners in the war on terror.” The cooperation lasted until George W. Bush included Iran in the “Axis of Evil” with Iraq and North Korea.
In fact, we directly aided Iran and worked with them. We also inadvertently advanced their national interests. Two decades ago, funded by a conservative organization, I and others went to Israel to study terrorism and anti-terrorism from an Israeli perspective. We met several people who were recently retired Israeli intelligence operatives. They were mystified by our 2003 invasion of Iraq. One said that the state sponsor of terrorism in the region was not Iraq but Iran, who would only be strengthened by our actions. He, of course, was right. Once again Weiner: “Ultimately, Iran and its Quds Force (created in 1979 to export the Iranian revolution across the nations of Islam and beyond) would prove to be the only winner of Bush’s war.”
And Trump’s contention that no president in forty-seven years has done anything about Iran slides over the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). The United States and other Western countries have placed various sanctions on Iran since 1979. In July 2015, Iran agreed to limit its nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief. This was the agreement that resulted in the JCPOA. The agreement was between Iran and the five permanent members of the Security Council plus Germany. It went into effect on January 20, 2016. The agreement did not rely on Iranian good faith; provisions included inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to make sure that Iran was not producing material that could be used in nuclear weapons. If any of the 5+1 countries found Iran not in compliance, sanctions were to be automatically reimposed. In April and July 2017, with Trump now ensconced in the White House, the U.S. and the other Western countries certified that Iran was in compliance. However, in October 2017 Trump said that America would no longer certify because Iran was violating the spirit of the agreement. However, the other five countries, Russia, China, France, England, and Germany said Iran was complying. In 2018, IAEA inspectors spent 3,000 calendar days in Iran and concluded Iran was in compliance with the JCPOA. Even so, in May 2018, without giving evidence of noncompliance, Trump withdrew from the agreement and reimposed sanctions on Iran, causing great economic harm to that country.
This history of the JCPOA indicates why a negotiated settlement to our present war on Iran will be difficult if not impossible. What believable guarantees can the United States give that it will live up to any promises it makes? According to five countries and international inspectors, Iran was complying and America still pulled out of the agreement. Tim Weiner states a clear fact: “Iran has not tested a nuclear weapon after five decades of research and development.” However, on the unsupported whims of the president, the agreement’s spirit was declared broken and sanctions reimposed. Of course, Iran has to be concerned that any new agreement would end the same way.
However, this brief history, Iranians know, is misleading. The hostilities between the two countries did not start in 1979. They started a quarter century earlier, and not surprisingly, were triggered by oil. Oil was discovered in Iran in the early twentieth century. Shortly after this discovery, according to Stephen Kinzer in The Brothers: John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War, Britain bribed the Iranian monarch to cede control of the resources to foreign countries.
Primarily Britain controlled Iran’s oil when Mohammad Reza Pahlavi became Shah of Iran in 1941. Iran was then a constitutional monarchy, but a decade later the Shah tried to disrupt democratic elections. This caused protests and led to the rise of Mohammad Mossadegh. Mossadegh had grown up seeing foreign companies and countries loot Iran, including its oil. Mossadegh wanted Iran to have full control of its resources. After he was chosen Prime Minister in 1951, parliament, under his leadership, unanimously voted to nationalize the oil industry. Winston Churchill was outraged, but he believed that he needed the United States for a coup. America was opposed to Mossadegh for the oil nationalization. Furthermore, because Mossadegh did not believe in global capitalism, he constituted a threat to the West. Under the leadership of Kermit “Kim” Roosevelt, Teddy’s grandson, the CIA, on its second attempt, overthrew Mossadegh in 1953. What had been a constitutional monarchy was now fully under the control of the Shah.
In many ways, Pahlavi helped make Iran a better place. In the1960s, he modernized the government, instituted profit sharing, had effective literacy programs, and invested in infrastructure. The country had sustained economic growth. GDP per capita nearly tripled between 1950 and 1970. But there was also increasing unrest from Islamic militants. The Shah responded with oppressive measures, which led to more unrest. He left Iran for exile in January 1979. The Iranian monarchy was abolished, which led to the installation of the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khomeni, and the subsequent taking of U.S. hostages.
From the Iranian perspective, the United States started war with their country in 1953. They have a point.
