US hostility towards Iran

Since the advent of the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979, the United States has exhibited unmitigated hostility towards Iran. Of course, the hostage taking of the US embassy in Tehran played an important role in turning US friendship with Iran into a hostile relationship. The Islamic revolutionaries and the nationalists, who assumed the reins of power in Iran after the Shah had fled from the country, harboured serious grievances against the US for the long history of its gross interference in Iran’s internal affairs and its support to the Shah’s despotic rule.

The Islamic revolutionaries also nursed deep feelings of unhappiness because of the over-westernisation of the Iranian society under the Shah for which again they held the US at least partly responsible. It was because of these past grievances that Ayatollah Khomeini called the US as “the great Satan”. Washington reciprocated to these negative sentiments in full measure and from the very beginning of the Islamic revolution embarked upon a calculated campaign to destabilise the Islamic revolutionary government in Iran.

During the early 1970’s, Washington had adopted a conscious policy of building up Iran as the regional influential or, in other words, as an instrument of the US policy in the region. Iran in any case was squarely in the Western camp during those years of the Cold War. To the dismay of the US, Iran was no longer willing to play that role after the success of the Islamic revolution. In fact, from the US point of view, Tehran’s independent foreign policy of “neither east nor west” and its staunch support to the Palestinian cause became a major obstacle in the fulfilment of its strategic designs in the Middle East, particularly its control over the oil and gas resources of the Persian Gulf region. The US also viewed Iran as a threat to Israel’s security, an obstacle to the so-called Middle East peace process and a sponsor of terrorism. In addition, Iran was suspected by the US of carrying on a secret nuclear-weapon programme. Iran has consistently denied these charges. In his State of the Union address in January 2002, President Bush went to the extent of categorising Iran together with Iraq and North Korea as part of the “axis of evil”.