Closing the Deal: America, Iran, and the Nuclear Treaty of 2015

By Stephen Eric Bronner, Reader Supported News

02 September 15

or the first time since the overthrow of the Shah and the establishment of the Iranian Republic more than 35 years ago, the United States and Iran have talked with one another in civil tones rather than bellicose rhetoric. The result was the treaty of 2015 concerning the future of nuclear energy (and perhaps the prospect of a nuclear weapon) in Iran that was born of compromise and attempts to allay suspicions on the domestic front in both countries. Historical context for the signing is crucial. Intense mutual distrust began following the prominent role played by the United States in overthrowing the democratic regime of Mohammed Mosaddegh in 1953 (primarily for nationalizing its oil companies) and installing the Shah Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, hated by the populace as both an American puppet and a decadent despot. US-Iranian relations consequently plummeted when in 1979 he was overthrown by the first successful Islamic revolution that was led by Ayatollah Khomeini.

The Shah and his family sought refuge in the United States as, more for symbolic than practical reasons, the American Embassy was occupied amid chants of “Death to America” and others demanding the annihilation of Israel. Hostages were taken, attempts to free them failed, and the United States stood humiliated before the rest of the world as Ronald Reagan replaced Jimmy Carter as president. While the new theocratic republic took shape, relations between the United States and Iran deteriorated further. American support for the invasion of Iran by Saddam Hussein’s Iraq only strengthened earlier feelings of national hatred and mistrust. This misguided attempt at geo-politics identified the United States with a brutal aggressor in a war that lasted from 1980 to 1988 and cost the lives of nearly a million soldiers and civilians. Worse: the borders basically remained unchanged, thereby generating frustration and incessant rumors of a Western conspiracy directed against one country or the other along with a revanchist spirit in both. With its support of Iraq, where Saddam’s Sunni government was repressing the nation’s Shia majority, and its hostility to both Syria and Iran, as well as its close ties to Saudi Arabia, it appeared that the United States had made the geo-political decision to side with Sunnis against Shia in a simmering conflict with regional implications.

As if to confirm the point, the United States and its European allies soon introduced sanctions that economically isolated Iran from the West, strangled what there was of its indigenous bourgeoisie, and ultimately led the republic to embrace a nuclear strategy. It also heightened the domestic power of the Mosque and the Revolutionary Guards. Anti-American and anti-Israeli demonstrations took place throughout the country. Economic miseries in Iran were meanwhile blamed on the United States and Israel, which then labeled Iran a “rogue” state and a participant in President George W. Bush’s “axis of evil.” Holocaust denial and extremist rhetoric only seemed to validate this impression.

Ironically, the situation only grew worse with the American invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Little sympathy was spent by Iran on the plight of its former enemy. Yet simply bombing Iraq, thereby leaving Iran as the dominant Islamic power in the region, made little strategic sense. It seemed only logical if these invasions were merely the first steps of a larger plan to assert American/Israeli hegemony in the Middle East; indeed, this standpoint only gained new support in Iran and elsewhere following the implosion of Syria. Iran seemed the only nation left capable of opposing the United States (and Israel) – and it felt surrounded. American troops were stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq; American nuclear technology had been sent to India and Pakistan. American military packages were given not only to Israel (whose nuclear arsenal contains between 300 and 400 weapons) but also to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan. Iran was thus left economically isolated and militarily encircled, demeaned for its imperialist ambitions and wild anti-Semitism, and denied the right to develop its own nuclear program by the only nation ever employ atomic weapons in wiping out Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end World War II.                  source