1980- The Year United States-Iran Relations Died And Have Yet to Be Resurrected

The Year That Broke the Relationship In order to understand 1980 as the year of United States-Iran relations, one must recognize that it was not a sudden break but the climactic fallout from decades of empire-strangling paranoia, imperial overextension and Cold War intrigue abatted by shared reach for competing visions of modernization — but even so, much like World War II with genocide in Germany, 1980 is also unparalleled as the date at which every last diplomatic, military and economic link between the two powers was either cut to shreds or set on fire leaving behind such scorched earth that its grass has never been allowed to regrow.That eight-year slaughter would rack up more than half a million dead and be one of the longestin the 20th century horrors of a conventional war. On Inauguration Day alone, Washington's dilemma was transcendent: While Iraq was not Dixie-Cup red-white-and-blue hardline (far from it, since it was technically an ally of the Soviet Union and nearly genocidally persecuting Iraqi Shiites), there were far worse players in Tehran; Consequentially, Khomeini's Iran here exists as the much greater threat to American interests in this region--the Gulf.But while the hostage crisis was capturing all headlines, something much more cataclysmic was building on Iran's western front: that day, on September 22, 1980, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had just begun a massive invasion from one of his own into an area that he long dreamed would be part of the Iraqi Empire—Khuzestan province and indeed Iran itself—and whose revolutionary Islamic ideology headed by Khomeini was arguably a direct challenge to Iraq's authoritarian rule as well as potentially destabilizing for Gulf monarchies dominated by Sunni Arab demographics.It starts long before the hostages, it starts long before revolution, hell it starts longer before 1980 than that in the post-war coup of CIA-backed overthrow of democratically elected Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh after he nationalized oil and Washington and London viewed Iran as a dangerous precedent for all resources, pillaged here-and-now too by America's beloved near-30 year autocratic sex monster Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi who would be your nearest "policeman of the Gulf". :1980 Turning Point Broken Ties The Shah was a loyal Cold War ally, investing billions on American weapons sales, including U.S. intelligence listening posts facing the Soviet border while he maintained his police state with his savage SAVAK secret police for dissidents at home—and Washington lavished support upon such a regime as Iranian clerics, students merchants and leftists became more disillusioned than ever by the Westernizing excesses, indifference to Islamic traditions, corruption and American servility of the Shah.That simmering rage had turned into national protests by 1978, leading to the Shah's exile in January, 1979 and leaving an opening for Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini a once-exiled cleric who from Paris denounced America as "the Great Satan" -- to return and seize power, his swift first acts dismantling the U.S.-backed military establishment, purging Western-trained officials from high government roles and replacing Washington-supported monarch with a revolutionary Islamic Republic safeguarding against both superpowers.The new regime reserved especially poisonous bile for the United States, which it alleged was trying to engineer the return of the Shah or bring down the new order — and that paranoia seemed justified when, in October 1979, President Jimmy Carter, already reeling from the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and loss of America's major regional ally made what turned out to be a fateful decision to admit the dying Shah into America for medical treatment: a humanitarian gesture immediately seized upon by Iran's revolutionaries as confirmation of fresh American conspiracy.Militant Iranian students took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979, holding 52 American diplomats and citizens hostage and demanding that Shah (the former ruler) be sent home to face justice--and that his wealth nonetheless be returned home--a hostage crisis that would last a staggering 444 days and become one of the touchstone traumas of American foreign policy in modern times but it was only with the calendar turning to 1980 when this explosive situation moved into its most perilous and consequential chapter.Carter did not solve the hostages crisis in January; he merely froze it, clamping ever more stringent economic sanctions on Iran--froze about $12bn of Iranian assets held in U.S. banks, banned all Iranian oil imports and cut off the last remaining shred of commercial and cultural exchange, while Iran's revolutionary government, already wracked by internal power struggles between clerics and their secular nationalist rivals as well as Marxist factions, used the hostages as a bludgeon to cement Khomeini's grip on power and smash moderate voices. Allies to Adversaries The revolutionary passion that had inspired total American submission made any negotiated release nearly impossible, and by February the UN Security Council had passed several resolutions condemning Iran's hostage-taking, all of which Tehran ignored (the world body was merely an American puppet in its view) and Carter — now face with a reelection drive and rising public ire — backtracked on suggestions of compromise, instead authorizing a clandestine military rescue mission that would later go down as one of the most notorious failures is U.S. military history: Operation Eagle Claw.At the same time, eight RH-53D Sea Stallion helicopters had flown from the aircraft carrierUSS Nimitzto a remote desert staging area codenamed Desert One, where they met C-130 transport planes carrying 300 special forces troops and fuel on the night of April 24 to start Operation Eagle Claw, but almost immediately everything began to go wrong: fine desert sand fouled the systems of three helicopters; thus there were only five operational (one needed as a spare); however six were an absolute minimum.Acting wisely, the commander ordered an abort on the mission but as the helicopters fled back to base a C-130 transport plane was hit on the ground by one of eight helicopters returning from Iran and launched into a massive fireball that killed all eight American servicemen. The subsequent investigation of the aircraft wreckage left at Desert One uncovered classified documents and television crews from Iran would air jubilant propaganda footage showing off crash wreckage signs marked "U.S." making it appear instead like America had suffered a national humiliation broadcasted live around-the-world.That incident had been forever etched on the American mind as a representation of Carter's impotence and Iran's invulnerability, and in response Carter severed diplomatic ties with Iran on April 7, closing down the U.S. Embassy officially and expelling all Iranian diplomats a move that was reciprocated by Iran cutting its own ties, putting an end to formal diplomatic relations for more than three decades that have never been re-established since.As the hostage crisis emblazoned front pages, a different seismic event was unfolding on Iran's western frontier: The Strait of Hormuz The subsequent investigation of the aircraft wreckage left at Desert One uncovered classified documents and television crews from Iran would air jubilant propaganda footage showing off crash wreckage signs marked "U.S." making it appear instead like America had suffered a national humiliation broadcasted live around-the-world.That incident had been forever etched on the American mind as a representation of Carter's impotence and Iran's invulnerability, and in response Carter severed diplomatic ties with Iran on April 7, closing down the U.S. Embassy officially and expelling all Iranian diplomats a move that was reciprocated by Iran cutting its own ties, putting an end to formal diplomatic relations for more than three decades that have never been re-established since.As the hostage crisis emblazoned front pages, a different seismic event was unfolding on Iran's western frontier: On September 22, 1980, Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein -- a secular Sunni Arab nationalist (and one-time ally of the US) with designs on oil-rich Khuzestan Province who viewed Khomeini's revolutionary Islamic ideology as an existential threat to his rule and the stability of Israel and Gulf monarchies -- launched a full-scale invasion that ignited the Iran-Iraq War.It would be an eight-year-long slaughter that would claim more than half a million lives to become one of the longest-lasting and cruelest conventional wars of the 20thCentury, and, immediately on Day One of the invasion, Washington's pro-Saddam dilemma was very real; although Saddam nominally a Soviet ally who had cracked down on Iraqi Shiites but Khomeini Iran was seen as by far the greater existential threat to US interests in the Gulf. The Door Slammed Shut Saddam was to put those very weapons -- including chemical agents many provided for or at least enabled by Western firms -- to work against Iranian troops and subsequently his own Kurdish population, But Cold War logic ruled the day in 1980: containing Khomeini's revolutionary Islamism trumped any moral compunctions about enhancing a ruthless dictator so third degree burning the innocent people aka Kurds were waiting on dollar value freedom advocated foreign policy approach.Iran, of course, was well aware last year of the evident American transition by November when Carter fell to Ronald Reagan in a landslide that analysts subsequently and I believe correctly attributed in large part to his treatment of the hostage crisis for harsh criticism almost moving toward praise from some revolutionary figures who naively hoped that Reagan—a conservative anti-communist—might be more realpolitik and less human rights obsessed than Carter. Others, especially Khomeini himself made the astonishing claim that no difference existed between American politicians.

1980- The Year United States-Iran Relations Died And Have Yet to Be Resurrected

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