By Ilan Fuchs, Ph.D. | 12/24/2024
Since the 1980s, Iran has been a key adversary of the U.S. and a more significant challenge than other rivals like Venezuela. With the results of the U.S. election in 2024, the U.S. approach to the Iranian government will be a significant issue that will be front and center of many federal agencies in Washington, DC.
US-Iran Relations over the Past Decades
The U.S. has a complex relationship with Iran, rooted in events like the 1953 coup that overthrew Iran’s democratically elected Prime Minister, Mohammad Mosaddegh. The U.S., working with the U.K., played a key role in that coup. U.S. and U.K. leaders feared that Mosaddegh’s policies might push Iran closer to the Soviet Union and wanted to protect Western economic interests in Iran’s oil industry.
After the end of World War II, Iran sought to limit its dependency on the West. Mosaddegh, a nationalist leader, became the Prime Minister in 1951. He was committed to reducing foreign influence over Iran's resources, particularly oil.
At the time, the British-controlled Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (AIOC) dominated Iran’s oil industry. The vast majority of profits went to Britain, while Iran received only a small fraction.
British intelligence agencies warned that there was a danger of Soviet involvement. The U.S. was worried about a communist takeover of Iran, which shared a border with Soviet Union satellite countries such as Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Turkmenistan. Consequently, the CIA, together with British intelligence agencies, backed a coup d'état in 1953 that created an authoritarian regime dominated by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.
Why Khomeini Rose to Power in Iran
The role of the U.S. played in the ousting of Mosaddegh, painted the United States as a semi- colonial power and created many opposition forces in Iran. The prime example of this anti-U.S. sentiment was a religious leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
As an ayatollah, the highest rank of leadership in the religious hierarchy of Shia Islam, Khomeini developed a political theory of Shia Islam. His theory called for the creation of an Islamic republic to be governed under sharia law as it is understood by Shia Muslims. Khomeini not only sought to turn Iran into a republic, but he also wanted to export Shia Islam into other countries around the world.
In his prolific texts, Khomeini identified the West and mainly the U.S. as the prominent rival of the Islamic Republic. He explained to his followers that the U.S. was only interested in the Persian Gulf because of Western oil interests and warned that Western cultural dominance threatened Iran's Islamic future.
In 1979, after decades of suppressing democratic forces in Iran, by the Shah and his secret police, the Iranian Revolution erupted. Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was forced to retreat into exile after a massive number of Iranian protesters took to the streets, calling for his removal. The Iranian Army refused to stop the revolution.
There were many opposition organizations that took part in the Iranian Revolution. However, only one Iranian opposition group ended up with all the power – the religious group headed by Khomeini.
The Iran Hostage Crisis
After his ousting, Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi passed through several countries before being admitted to the United States for cancer treatment. Many Iranians saw his admission to the U.S. as evidence that the U.S. planned to reinstate him.
On November 4, 1979, a group of radical Iranian students stormed the American Embassy in Tehran. They took 52 people hostage, including diplomats and embassy staff, demanding that the Shah be extradited to Iran to face trial and punishment.
The hostage-takers, who identified themselves as Islamic students, were also motivated by a desire to humiliate the United States. Their purpose in invading the American embassy was to demonstrate Iran’s rejection of Western interference after its support of the Shah's regime.
This hostage-taking event has influenced US-Iran relations for decades. Diplomatic relations were severed after the Iranian Revolution, and the United States and Iran have been locked in a cold war (turning hot at times) ever since.
Khomeini Assumes Complete Power in Iran
In 1980, Khomeini took complete power and drafted a constitution based on his political theory called “Wilayat Al-Faqhi” (The Guardianship of the Religious Cleric). In this document, the Iranian Parliament and the Iranian President are subservient to bodies controlled by religious clerics and above all Iran’s Supreme Leader. This leader would be a religious cleric chosen for life by a group of religious clerics called the “Assembly of Experts of the Leadership.”
This group, elected by the electorate every eight years, is populated only by religious clerics. They are the only ones able to choose (vote for) or depose the supreme leader.
Iranian politics are controlled by religion, and Iran is a theocracy. Consequently, elected Iranian officials have to be approved by the religious authorities.
Although Iran is a member of the United Nations and has about 24 diplomats based in New York City, there are no direct diplomatic relations between Iran and the United States. It is interesting to note that Iranian officials – such as Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister for Legal and International Affairs Kazem Gharibabadi and Iranian presidents Hassan Rouhani and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad – come to speak before the U.N. Security Council and openly criticize the United States on U.S. soil.
After the hostage crisis, the U.S. supported – to a degree – Saddam Hussein, who invaded Iran and participated in the Iran-Iraq War that killed an estimated 500,000 to one million people. The Iran-Iraq war solidified the tension between the U.S. and Iran.
At the same time, the regime in Tehran began to spread the Islamic Revolution, which included the use of force. Iran's foreign policy was focused on creating a Shia-dominated empire.
Iran's Quds Force was then designated as a military unit that controlled proxy powers such as Lebanon's Shia militia, Hezbollah, became a terrorist group that was responsible for multiple terrorist attacks against U.S. targets and hundreds of deaths.
After the Bush administration went to war against al-Qaeda, new forms of jihadi terrorism emerged, and their members viewed both the West and Shia-led Iran as enemies. This development led to the rise of ISIS, a prominent jihadi force and foreign terrorist organization aiming to establish an Islamic caliphate.
At its peak, ISIS nearly overran Iraq, with Iraqi forces unable to stop its advance. In response, the Iranian Quds Force, alongside Shia Iraqi forces, launched a prolonged operation to dismantle ISIS.
The Nuclear Deal with Iran
The relationship between the U.S. and Iran reached its lowest point when it became clear that Iran had nuclear weapons capabilities. In the 1990s, there were suspicions of Iranian nuclear armament, but in the early 2000s, information came out about the Natanz enrichment plant and the Arak heavy-water reactor.
This information heightened global concern about a nuclear war because both facilities could be part of a nuclear weaponry program. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) launched an investigation of Iran's ability to develop nuclear weapons, which is still in progress.
The fear of an Iranian nuclear program and the stalling tactics that Iran used caused the U.S. and the European Union to issue crippling economic sanctions against Iran. As a result, there has been dire economic strain to the Iranian economy.
However, economic sanctions did not bring about an end to the nuclear program. President Barack Obama sought to bring a resolution to this ongoing crisis that destabilized the Persian Gulf and the entire Middle East. He suggested a nuclear deal designed to reduce the threat of nuclear weapons to Israel and Saudi Arabia and to provide the U.S. with a path to lift economic sanctions against Iran.
In 2015, Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei agreed to the Iran Nuclear Deal, called the “Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action” (JCPOA) brokered under President Barack Obama. The nuclear deal was signed and celebrated as a grand achievement of contemporary U.S. foreign policy.
The JCPOA promised that Iran would reduce its uranium enrichment capacity and limit uranium stockpile for 15 years. It also included an Iranian promise to restructure nuclear facilities to prevent it from producing weapons-grade plutonium.
The agreement also assigned a key role to the IAEA, granting the agency extensive access to monitor Iran’s nuclear sites and ensure compliance through regular inspections. In return, sanctions relief was given on a rolling basis, giving many young Iranians suffering from unemployment greater hope for the future.
Iran's Withdrawal from the Nuclear Deal
The JCPOA was in place until 2018, when President Donald Trump’s administration withdrew from it. The reasons for withdrawal included violations by Iran and evidence that Iran continues to develop nuclear weaponry.
President Trump decided on the withdrawal after intelligence reports obtained by Israeli and US intelligence agencies indicated that Iran was continuing with covert operations of stockpiling enriched uranium. Upon learning that Iran's nuclear program was active, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the sanctions would be reinstated and to use an approach of “maximum pressure.”
The new sanctions imposed by the U.S. – but not the European Union or other nations since they did not abolish the JCPOA – aimed to limit Iran’s oil exports and destabilize its economy, forcing Iran to renegotiate on U.S. terms. Iran immediately restricted the international community’s ability to inspect its nuclear sites and began to increase production of enriched uranium. Iran-backed militias began attacking oil tankers in the Persian Gulf and shot down a U.S. drone.
Meanwhile, Iran continued to send military support to its proxy powers, who increased their attacks and threats against U.S. targets. These actions were led by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and their commander, General Qassem Soleimani. Upon learning of the covert operations of the IRGC, President Donald Trump ordered the targeted killing of Soleimani with a U.S. drone strike in Iraq to weaken Iran's Quds Force.
Resuming Nuclear Negotiations with Iran
After the election of President Joe Biden, the White House hoped that nuclear talks would resume. The Biden administration hoped to bring Iran back to the negotiating table by leveraging the rising oil prices and offering a promise to lift international sanctions. The idea was to encourage non-American companies investment in Iran and heal the Iranian economy.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken made multiple efforts to resume talks with Iran with the support of the Biden administration. Rumors of a secret channel in Oman circulated, but these efforts did not lead to any progress.
In large part, no progress was made because there were signs of a drastic weakening of the regime after Iranians protested about the crippled economy and human rights violations. One Iranian opposition group after another promised that change was coming, and even Iranian president Hassan Rouhani talked publicly of the need for change.
However, those changes did not materialize, and now U.S.-Iran relations are at a new crossroads. With President Donald Trump returning to the White House, the question is not if things will happen but what will happen and when.
Trump's New Foreign Policy against Iran
Iran is included in the Trump administration’s list of international foes, which include North Korea, Venezuela, Russia, and China. According to authors Matthew Kroenig and Dan Negrea, who published a 2024 manifesto for the second Trump administration “We Win, They Lose: Republican Foreign Policy and the New Cold War,” they predict that Trump’s foreign policy will focus on limiting China's power.
To accomplish that plan, Trump will seek to create a distance between China and its allies. The way Kroenig and Negrea see it, if the Russian invasion that caused the war in Ukraine were to end and sanctions on Russia were lifted, that could weaken Russia’s alliance with China and diminish its support for Iran. As a result, the Iranian regime would become more isolated.
The Trump administration sees Iran as a target since it is one of the weakest of American enemies. Trump will also continue to impose sanctions on Iranian assets to limit Iran's oil exports to China and Russia.
The U.S. does not need to attack Iran directly but could encourage and support Israel in using its capabilities against Iranian targets, including nuclear sites. With a drone strike, Israel cannot completely destroy these sites. But with the aid of the U.S., a larger plan could be devised to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons program, especially given the regime’s ongoing reluctance to negotiate a new nuclear deal.
The U.S. could also go after Iran by helping Iranian opposition groups who want to change the Islamic system of governance. There are factions within the Iranian government who have only one goal: protecting power for power’s sake. They might be willing to shut down a nuclear reactor in exchange for the regime’s survival.
The Road Ahead: High Stakes and Uncertain Turns
U.S.-Iran relations have been shaped by decades of conflict, nuclear tensions, and regional power struggles. As the U.S. rethinks and strategizes its foreign policy, it faces tough decisions: how to handle Iran's internal turmoil, its rigid ideology, and its growing influence in the Middle East.
In the future, the U.S. will need to take decisive steps – whether that means tightening sanctions, supporting opposition groups, or working with allies to check Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
The big question is: how far will Iran's leadership go to hold onto its vision of the Islamic Republic? With a Supreme Leader rooted in apocalyptic beliefs and a regime under growing pressure, the stakes couldn’t be higher. For U.S. policymakers, the challenge is figuring out how to be firm without losing sight of the bigger picture in this delicate and unpredictable situation.
International Relations and Global Security Degrees at AMU
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All of these courses are taught by experienced faculty members who have a deep knowledge of international relations and global security matters. For more information about these degree programs visit our legal studies program page.