For more than 70 years, the United States has had a complex and often hostile relationship with Iran.
In 1953, the CIA helped engineer a coup that toppled Iran’s democratically elected prime minister and put power firmly in the hands of its monarch, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, who opened his country to American oil companies and aligned with the U.S. in the Cold War. But the shah ruled through repression, and in 1979 was overthrown in the Iranian Revolution.
Shah of Iran Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and President Jimmy Carter shake hands in the White House in 1977. Getty Images
Iran’s new supreme leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, branded the United States “the Great Satan,” while a group of radical Islamist students seized control of the American Embassy in Tehran and took 52 Americans hostage.
For 444 days, the U.S. was consumed by the hostage crisis, with the yellow ribbon at home becoming a symbol of the Americans held overseas.
Blindfolded hostages inside the U.S. Embassy compound in Tehran in 1979. Bettmann Archive
Jimmy Carter ordered U.S. special forces to rescue the hostages, but the mission ended in disaster, with U.S. aircraft colliding in the desert. A covert effort to extract six U.S. diplomats did succeed and was immortalized in the Oscar-winning Ben Affleck movie “Argo.” But the hostage crisis helped sink Carter’s presidency, and the hostages were finally released minutes after Ronald Reagan took the oath of office.
In the 1980s, the U.S. supported Saddam Hussein’s Iraq during a bloody eight-year war against Iran, while Iranian-backed militants targeted the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, killing 241 American service personnel.
Freed hostages welcomed back to the United States after 444 days. Express / Getty Images
Since then, the U.S. has branded Iran a state sponsor of terror.
After yesterday’s attack, a new chapter in this complicated relationship is being written in fire and smoke.