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For over a century, America and Iran maintained friendly ties. The United States helped modernize Iran and defended its sovereignty against imperial powers. Then everything changed.
Three pivotal moments destroyed this partnership and created one of the world’s most dangerous rivalries. The 1953 CIA coup that toppled Iran’s democracy. The 1979 revolution and hostage crisis that severed diplomatic relations. And the ongoing nuclear standoff that has brought both countries to the brink of war.
Today, these former allies view each other as existential threats. Understanding how this happened reveals one of foreign policy’s most consequential failures—and shows why the conflict remains so difficult to resolve.
Early Friendship
First Contact
Iran, then called Persia, reached out first. In April 1850, the Persian representative in Constantinople approached American diplomat George P. Marsh about a friendship treaty.
Persia was caught between two imperial powers—Britain and Russia—competing for influence in Central Asia. America seemed different: a distant nation with no territorial ambitions in the region.
Secretary of State John Middleton Clayton authorized negotiations in June 1850. A treaty was signed in November 1851 but never took effect. The U.S. Senate added a “most-favored-nation” commercial clause during ratification, but Persia never acted on it.
Formal diplomatic relations finally began on June 11, 1883, when American representative S.G.W. Benjamin presented his credentials to the Shah in Tehran.
America as Helper
In the early 1900s, Iran turned repeatedly to Americans for expertise as it tried to modernize. The most famous example was Morgan Shuster, an American financier appointed by Iran’s parliament in 1911 to reform the country’s chaotic finances.
Shuster’s efforts were so effective that Britain and Russia pressured Iran to fire him. But his work left a lasting positive impression on Iranian nationalists who saw America as genuinely helpful rather than exploitative.
American Protestant missionaries built some of Iran’s first modern schools and hospitals. After both world wars, Washington advocated for Iranian sovereignty—supporting Iran at the Paris Peace Conference and successfully pressuring the Soviet Union to withdraw troops from northern Iran after World War II.
This history built a reservoir of goodwill that made the events of 1953 particularly shocking and damaging.
The 1953 Coup
Mossadegh’s Challenge
Mohammad Mossadegh embodied Iranian hopes for democracy and independence. Born into the ruling elite and educated in Europe, he was a lawyer and seasoned politician elected Prime Minister in 1951.
His government enacted progressive reforms including unemployment benefits and ending forced peasant labor. But his signature achievement was confronting the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, the British-owned monopoly that controlled Iran’s vast oil reserves.
The company operated like a colonial state within Iran. It paid the Iranian government only a small fraction of its enormous profits while paying far more in taxes to Britain. Mossadegh believed Iran could never be truly free until it controlled its own most valuable resource.
Nationalization Crisis
On March 15, 1951, Iran’s parliament passed Mossadegh’s legislation nationalizing the oil company. The move was overwhelmingly popular and celebrated as economic independence.
Britain was furious. It imposed a crushing oil embargo, organized an international boycott of Iranian oil, and threatened military action.
Initially, President Harry Truman took a moderate position. Worried about pushing Iran toward the Soviet Union, his administration urged Britain to negotiate and opposed invasion. This gave Iran hope that America supported its nationalist aspirations.
That hope died when Dwight Eisenhower won the presidency in 1952.
Operation Ajax
The new administration, led by the anti-communist Dulles brothers—Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and CIA Director Allen Dulles—was far more receptive to British arguments.
Britain had failed to convince Truman on economic grounds, so it reframed the issue in Cold War terms. Declassified documents show British officials argued the primary goal was combating communism in Iran, not just reclaiming oil assets.
The CIA received $1 million and a simple directive: “bring down Mossadegh.” The plan, designed by CIA operative Kermit Roosevelt Jr. (grandson of Theodore Roosevelt), was multifaceted.
It involved massive propaganda portraying Mossadegh as corrupt and anti-religious. CIA agents bribed parliament members, military officers, clerics, and mobsters. A key goal was persuading the reluctant Shah to sign royal decrees dismissing Mossadegh and appointing a U.S.-backed general, Fazlollah Zahedi, as replacement.
The Coup Unfolds
The first attempt on August 15, 1953, failed completely. The officer sent to deliver the Shah’s dismissal decree was arrested. News of the plot leaked and the panicked Shah fled to Rome.
But Kermit Roosevelt, operating from the U.S. embassy, refused to give up. He improvised a new approach: using CIA funds to organize large crowds of anti-Mossadegh demonstrators in Tehran on August 19.
These paid mobs, including hired thugs, clashed with government supporters, attacked pro-Mossadegh newspapers, and seized the central radio station. This manufactured uprising gave pro-Shah military units cover to attack the prime minister’s residence with tanks.
After hours of fighting, Mossadegh’s government fell. He was arrested, tried for treason, and spent the rest of his life under house arrest until his death in 1967.
The Shah returned triumphant. A new oil agreement in 1954 gave Western companies operational control while keeping the industry formally nationalized. For the first time, five American oil companies received a 40 percent stake in Iran’s oil production.
President Eisenhower privately acknowledged the U.S. role and noted prophetically that the new government would eventually become unpopular, at which point “the U.S. might be blamed for its existence.”
The Shah’s Alliance
Building a Regional Pillar
After 1953, America threw its full support behind the restored monarch. The strategy was to build Iran into a stable, pro-Western “pillar” of security in the Middle East—a bulwark against Soviet expansion and guardian of oil reserves.
Washington provided massive military and economic aid, helped create the Shah’s security apparatus, and even started his nuclear program. But this created a fundamental paradox: the tools used to prop up the Shah’s throne alienated the Iranian people and created the resentments that would lead to his violent overthrow.
The Treaty of Amity
The new relationship was formalized on August 15, 1955, with the Treaty of Amity, Economic Relations, and Consular Rights.
The treaty’s first article declared: “There shall be firm and enduring peace and sincere friendship between the United States of America and Iran.” It established comprehensive legal frameworks for commerce, investment, and diplomatic protection.
In a profound historical irony, this treaty designed to cement friendship would later be invoked by the Islamic Republic in legal disputes against the United States at the International Court of Justice.
Arms and Atoms
The alliance rested on two pillars: unprecedented military cooperation and nuclear technology.
Military buildup: America transformed Iran into one of the developing world’s most formidable military powers. The relationship peaked during the Nixon administration when the President gave the Shah a virtual “blank check” in May 1972, promising Iran could purchase any non-nuclear weapons system it desired.
Fueled by skyrocketing oil revenues after the 1973 oil crisis, the Shah spent over $16 billion on sophisticated U.S. arms between 1972 and 1977. This included advanced F-14 Tomcat fighter jets, tanks, and warships.
Nuclear program: In one of history’s great ironies, America originated Iran’s nuclear program. In 1957, as part of President Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” initiative, the U.S. signed a civil nuclear cooperation agreement with Iran.
This program provided Iran’s first nuclear facility, the Tehran Research Reactor, in 1967. Critically, the U.S. supplied weapons-grade highly enriched uranium fuel. This collaboration continued until the 1979 revolution and laid the foundation for the nuclear program that would later become a source of intense conflict.
The White Revolution
Bolstered by U.S. support and oil wealth, the Shah launched his “White Revolution” in 1963—an ambitious program of social and economic Westernization including land redistribution, literacy campaigns, and extending voting rights to women.
While these reforms generated rapid economic growth and improved living standards for many Iranians, they also created profound social dislocation and political alienation.
The reforms angered traditional sectors of Iranian society: the clergy, who saw secularizing policies as attacks on Islamic values, and bazaar merchants, whose economic dominance was threatened by state-led industrialization.
The most prominent clerical opponent was Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who delivered fiery sermons denouncing the Shah’s regime as corrupt and subservient to American and Israeli interests. After his arrest sparked violent riots in 1963, Khomeini was forced into exile in 1964, where he continued cultivating his revolutionary movement for 15 years.
SAVAK: The Secret Police
To enforce his rule and crush dissent, the Shah relied on his feared secret police, SAVAK. Creating this brutal security apparatus was another key area of U.S.-Iranian cooperation.
Following the 1953 coup, U.S. and Israeli intelligence officers worked directly with Iran to establish and train SAVAK. Declassified CIA memos confirm the agency provided funding and training.
A U.S. Army colonel was sent in 1953 to work with SAVAK’s first director, training members in interrogation and surveillance methods. This was followed by a permanent team of CIA officers.
SAVAK became notorious for systematic torture, extrajudicial executions, and violent suppression of opposition. Amnesty International blamed it for thousands of political prisoners’ deaths. For many Iranians, SAVAK was the most hated symbol of the Shah’s tyranny, and its direct CIA connection inextricably linked America to the regime’s worst abuses.
The Revolution and Hostage Crisis
The Shah Falls
By the late 1970s, the “island of stability” that U.S. policymakers saw in Iran was fiction. Beneath rapid economic growth and modernization, deep discontent was boiling over.
The revolution was fueled by a potent mix of grievances uniting diverse groups: outrage over the Shah’s autocratic rule enforced by brutal SAVAK; widespread corruption enriching elites while inflation hurt ordinary citizens; and backlash against Western cultural influence that many religious Iranians saw as corrupting their national identity.
Crucially, the Shah was widely perceived as an American puppet, his legitimacy fatally undermined by dependence on a foreign power. The memory of the 1953 coup remained a persistent wound.
Revolution began in earnest in January 1978 with protests in the holy city of Qom, sparked by a government article slandering Ayatollah Khomeini. A key turning point was “Black Friday” in September 1978, when government troops fired on Tehran demonstrators, killing hundreds and galvanizing opposition.
Throughout this period, U.S. intelligence agencies and the Carter administration were caught by surprise, failing to grasp the depth of popular opposition. As late as 1977, President Carter had toasted the Shah in Tehran, calling Iran “an island of stability in one of the more troubled areas of the world.”
With his authority crumbling and his army beginning to mutiny, the cancer-stricken Shah fled Iran on January 16, 1979. Two weeks later, Ayatollah Khomeini returned from 15 years of exile to a hero’s welcome from millions of jubilant Iranians. The monarchy collapsed and the Islamic Republic was born.
The Embassy Takeover
The final break was triggered by a U.S. decision that Washington saw as humanitarian but Tehran viewed through the prism of historical trauma.
In October 1979, President Carter, under pressure from influential figures like David Rockefeller and Henry Kissinger, allowed the exiled and terminally ill Shah to enter the United States for cancer treatment.
For Iran’s revolutionaries, this was profoundly ominous. It looked like a replay of events leading to the 1953 coup, sparking fears that America was sheltering the Shah to restore him to power. Khomeini denounced the U.S. embassy as a “den of espionage” and conspiracy center against the revolution.
On November 4, 1979, radical students calling themselves the “Muslim Student Followers of the Imam’s Line” stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking more than 60 Americans captive. While some were later released, 52 diplomats and citizens remained hostages.
The students’ primary demand was the Shah’s immediate extradition to stand trial. The act was a direct rejection of decades of American interference and a preemptive strike against feared repetition of 1953.
The crisis wasn’t merely an attack on America—it was a pivotal move in post-revolutionary Iran’s internal power struggle. It fatally weakened moderate Prime Minister Mehdi Bazargan, who resigned in protest days after the takeover. The crisis allowed Khomeini and hardline clerics to outmaneuver secular and leftist rivals, consolidate power, and define the new republic’s identity in permanent opposition to the “Great Satan.”
444 Days
The hostage crisis plunged the Carter administration into a 444-day ordeal that dominated American politics and media. On April 7, 1980, after months of failed negotiations, the U.S. formally severed diplomatic relations with Iran.
Carter imposed economic sanctions, freezing billions in Iranian government assets in U.S. banks and embargoing Iranian oil.
As diplomatic avenues stalled, the administration authorized a high-risk military rescue mission. On April 24, 1980, “Operation Eagle Claw” was launched but ended in disaster before it began.
Mechanical failures and a desert sandstorm forced commanders to abort the operation. During withdrawal, a helicopter collided with a transport plane, causing a massive explosion that killed eight American servicemen. Televised images of the wreckage and Iranian authorities parading American casualties’ bodies were a profound humiliation and devastating blow to the Carter presidency.
The Shah’s death in Egypt in July 1980 removed the hostage-takers’ original demand, but the crisis continued. Negotiations mediated by Algerian diplomats finally produced the Algiers Accords. The U.S. promised not to intervene in Iran’s internal affairs and agreed to unfreeze Iranian assets in exchange for the hostages’ freedom.
In a final act of political theater, Iran held the hostages until the moment Ronald Reagan was sworn in as president on January 20, 1981, denying Carter credit for their release. After 444 days, the hostages were free, but the U.S.-Iran relationship lay in ruins.
War, Sanctions, and Secret Deals
The Iran-Iraq War
The two decades following the revolution cemented entrenched hostility between America and Iran. With diplomatic ties severed, the relationship was conducted through indirect conflict, covert dealings, and escalating economic sanctions.
In September 1980, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein launched a full-scale invasion of Iran, fearing the export of Iran’s Shiite revolution and seeing opportunity to seize disputed territory. The ensuing Iran-Iraq War was one of the 20th century’s longest and most devastating conventional conflicts, resulting in an estimated one million Iranian casualties and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi deaths.
Officially neutral, America in practice pursued a policy of “tilting” toward Iraq. The primary objective was preventing victory by Khomeini’s Iran, viewed as the greater threat to regional stability and oil flows.
This support for Iraq was extensive: billions in economic aid, critical battlefield intelligence from the CIA, special operations training, and sale of “dual-use” technology with both civilian and military applications. This assistance continued even after U.S. intelligence confirmed Iraqi forces were using chemical weapons against Iranian troops.
From Iran’s perspective, America wasn’t neutral but an active supporter of their aggressor. Many in Tehran believed Washington had given Saddam a “green light” for invasion and was orchestrating a global campaign to ensure Iran’s defeat.
Iran-Contra Scandal
The strategic logic of containing Iran was spectacularly contradicted by one of the Reagan administration’s biggest scandals: the Iran-Contra Affair.
Between 1985 and 1986, senior U.S. officials, including National Security Council staffer Lt. Col. Oliver North, orchestrated a secret operation to sell advanced American weapons to the very Iranian regime the U.S. was otherwise working to contain.
The operation had dual purposes. First, arms sales were intended to persuade Iran to use its influence with Hezbollah to secure release of seven American hostages in Lebanon. This directly violated Reagan’s public policy of never negotiating with terrorists.
Second, profits from illegal arms sales—at least $3.8 million out of $48 million—were covertly diverted to fund Contra rebels fighting Nicaragua’s leftist Sandinista government. This funding scheme circumvented the Boland Amendment, a law explicitly prohibiting U.S. government support for the Contras.
When the scheme was exposed by a Lebanese magazine in November 1986, it created a massive political firestorm, leading to congressional hearings and multiple indictments. The affair revealed U.S. foreign policy in profound disarray, simultaneously pursuing contradictory approaches to Iran and undermining credibility with allies and adversaries alike.
Direct Military Clashes
As the Iran-Iraq War spilled into the Persian Gulf, direct military clashes between America and Iran became reality.
In April 1988, after an Iranian mine severely damaged the U.S. frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts, the Navy launched Operation Praying Mantis. In a single day of naval combat, U.S. forces destroyed two Iranian oil platforms used as military staging posts and sank or crippled several Iranian naval vessels.
A few months later, on July 3, 1988, the conflict produced one of its most tragic episodes. The U.S. Navy cruiser USS Vincennes, operating in the tense Strait of Hormuz, mistakenly identified Iran Air Flight 655—a civilian Airbus on a routine flight to Dubai—as an attacking F-14 fighter jet.
The Vincennes fired two surface-to-air missiles, shooting down the airliner and killing all 290 passengers and crew. While the U.S. government expressed regret, it never issued a formal apology and maintained the Vincennes had acted in self-defense.
For Iranians, the downing of Flight 655 wasn’t a mistake but a deliberate act of barbarism and further proof of America’s implacable hostility—a grievance that remains potent today.
Building the Sanctions Regime
With the Iran-Iraq War’s end in 1988 and the Soviet Union’s collapse, U.S. policy shifted definitively toward economic containment. Throughout the 1990s, under both Bush and Clinton administrations, America constructed an extensive sanctions architecture designed to isolate Iran and cripple its economy.
This marked strategic evolution from reacting to specific events to waging sustained economic warfare.
| Executive Order/Act | Date | Administration | Stated Reason(s) | Key Provisions |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Executive Order 12170 | Nov. 1979 | Carter | Iran Hostage Crisis | Froze $8.1 billion in Iranian government assets in U.S. banks |
| State Sponsor of Terrorism Designation | Jan. 1984 | Reagan | Support for terrorist groups | Prohibited arms sales and most U.S. foreign assistance |
| Executive Order 12613 | Oct. 1987 | Reagan | Attacks on shipping, support for terrorism | Banned all imports of Iranian goods and services |
| Iran-Iraq Arms Nonproliferation Act | Oct. 1992 | Bush Sr. | WMD proliferation | Sanctioned foreign entities providing WMD technology |
| Executive Orders 12957 & 12959 | Mar./May 1995 | Clinton | Nuclear program, support for terrorism | Comprehensive ban on U.S. trade and investment |
| Iran and Libya Sanctions Act (ILSA) | Aug. 1996 | Clinton | Energy sector development, WMD programs | Secondary sanctions on non-U.S. companies investing over $20 million |
The most significant development was introducing “secondary sanctions” under the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act of 1996. This landmark legislation sought to internationalize the U.S. embargo by threatening to penalize foreign companies doing business with Iran, using the power of the U.S. financial system as a weapon to choke off foreign investment in Iran’s energy sector.
Brief Diplomatic Opening
The decade of escalating sanctions ended with a surprising but brief diplomatic opening. The 1997 election of reformist cleric Mohammad Khatami as Iran’s president ushered in moderation.
In a 1998 CNN interview, Khatami called for a “dialogue among civilizations” between Iran and the American people, raising hopes for a potential thaw.
This led to the highest-level official contact since the revolution when Secretary of State Madeleine Albright met Iran’s deputy foreign minister during the 1998 UN General Assembly.
In a landmark 2000 speech, Albright formally acknowledged the U.S. role in the 1953 coup, calling the policy “regrettably shortsighted” and admitting it was a “setback for Iran’s political development.” While stopping short of formal apology, her words were significant.
The Clinton administration lifted some sanctions on Iranian goods like carpets and pistachios. For a moment, the wall of mistrust seemed ready to crack, but this fragile détente would soon shatter.
The Nuclear Crisis
Axis of Evil
The brief diplomatic thaw gave way to new confrontation after 2002, when the world learned of Iran’s secret nuclear facilities. This revelation set off a protracted crisis cycling through periods of intense pressure, landmark diplomacy, and dangerous escalation.
In the immediate aftermath of September 11, 2001, America and Iran found rare common ground. Both were sworn enemies of Afghanistan’s Taliban. During the U.S.-led invasion, Iranian diplomats provided helpful cooperation at the Bonn conference establishing a new post-Taliban government.
This pragmatic alignment proved fleeting. In his State of the Union address on January 29, 2002, President George W. Bush branded Iran, along with Iraq and North Korea, as part of an “axis of evil,” accusing Tehran of aggressively pursuing weapons of mass destruction and exporting terror.
The speech profoundly shocked many in Iran, including reformers who had been cautiously engaging with the West. They felt their Afghanistan cooperation had been met with a slap in the face. The speech killed prospects for building on post-9/11 cooperation and hardened conservative positions in Tehran, where it was seen as proof of America’s immutable hostility.
Secret Facilities Revealed
The “axis of evil” speech became the backdrop for the nuclear crisis that erupted later that year. In August 2002, an Iranian dissident group publicly revealed two previously secret nuclear sites: a uranium enrichment facility at Natanz and a heavy-water production plant at Arak.
This disclosure confirmed Iran had been pursuing a clandestine nuclear program for years, raising international alarm that its ultimate goal was developing nuclear weapons.
The revelation triggered more than a decade of escalating pressure. America and its allies, working through the United Nations and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), imposed punishing sanctions targeting Iran’s energy, financial, and shipping sectors. These measures were designed to cripple Iran’s economy and force it to the negotiating table.
The JCPOA Breakthrough
After years of standoff, a diplomatic breakthrough finally occurred. Following the election of the more moderate Hassan Rouhani as Iran’s president, secret bilateral talks between U.S. and Iranian officials began in Oman in 2013.
These back-channel negotiations paved the way for formal multilateral talks between Iran and the P5+1—the five permanent UN Security Council members (China, France, Russia, the UK, and the U.S.) plus Germany.
The complex negotiations culminated in the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) signed on July 14, 2015. The landmark agreement was built on a core bargain: Iran accepted significant, long-term, verifiable restrictions on its nuclear program in exchange for comprehensive relief from nuclear-related international sanctions.
Under the deal, Iran was required to:
- Drastically reduce its stockpile of enriched uranium and cap enrichment at 3.67%, far below weapons-grade
- Dismantle thousands of centrifuges used for enrichment
- Redesign its heavy-water reactor at Arak to prevent weapons-grade plutonium production
- Grant the IAEA unprecedented monitoring and inspection access
In return, UN, EU, and U.S. secondary sanctions were lifted, allowing Iran to reconnect to the global financial system and resume oil sales.
The central achievement was extending Iran’s “breakout time”—the time needed to produce enough fissile material for one nuclear weapon—from just a few months to at least a year. This provided crucial buffer time for the international community to detect and respond to any Iranian move toward a bomb.
The IAEA repeatedly verified Iran’s full compliance with its commitments.
Maximum Pressure
Despite verifiably blocking Iran’s pathways to a nuclear weapon, the JCPOA was deeply controversial in America. Republican critics argued the deal was flawed because its “sunset clauses” allowed some restrictions to expire after 10-15 years, potentially giving Iran a legitimate path to a bomb. They also said it failed to address Iran’s ballistic missile program or support for regional proxies.
On May 8, 2018, President Donald Trump fulfilled a campaign promise and announced unilateral U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA, calling it a “horrible, one-sided deal.” The Trump administration immediately re-imposed all previous sanctions and launched a “maximum pressure” campaign, threatening severe consequences for any country or company continuing business with Iran.
The consequences were far-reaching and counterproductive:
Economic devastation: The campaign was devastating for Iran’s economy and people. Sanctions caused Iran’s currency to collapse, inflation to skyrocket, and poverty to deepen. Although humanitarian goods like medicine were technically exempt, broad sanctions on Iranian banks made it nearly impossible for Iran to finance these imports, leading to severe shortages of life-saving drugs.
Nuclear advancement: Freed from obligations by U.S. withdrawal, Iran began systematically breaking the JCPOA’s limits starting in May 2019. It increased its stockpile of enriched uranium far beyond the deal’s cap, began enriching to higher purities (first to 20% and then to 60%, a short technical step from the 90% needed for weapons), installed more advanced centrifuges, and restricted IAEA inspector access.
Iran’s nuclear program became far more advanced and dangerous than before the JCPOA, and its “breakout time” shrank from a year to a matter of weeks.
Diplomatic isolation: The withdrawal isolated America from key European allies who opposed the move and tried to keep the deal alive. Inside Iran, the U.S. action was a political gift to hardliners, who used it as definitive proof that America could never be trusted and diplomacy was futile.
Regional Proxy Wars
The nuclear standoff has played out against escalating regional conflict between America and Iran, often fought through proxies in a “shadow war” across the Middle East:
Iraq: U.S. troops stationed to fight ISIS have frequently been targeted by Iran-backed Shiite militias. Tensions spiked dramatically in January 2020 when a U.S. drone strike in Baghdad assassinated Qasem Soleimani, the powerful commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Quds Force. Iran retaliated with a ballistic missile attack on a U.S. base in Iraq.
Syria: The civil war created a complex battlefield where U.S. and Iranian interests collided. While America intervened to fight ISIS and support opposition groups, Iran and its proxy Hezbollah intervened decisively to save their ally Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
Yemen and the Red Sea: In Yemen’s civil war, Iran has provided military support including advanced drones and missiles to the Houthi movement. In response to the Israel-Gaza war that began in late 2023, the Houthis began attacking international shipping in the Red Sea, prompting retaliatory U.S. and allied strikes to protect navigation freedom.
Current Crisis
Biden’s Diplomatic Push
The Biden administration, taking office in 2021, made reviving the JCPOA a priority. For over a year, U.S. and Iranian diplomats engaged in indirect talks in Vienna, but negotiations ultimately stalled in 2022, deadlocked over sanctions relief scope and Iran’s advanced nuclear program.
Following the 2024 U.S. presidential election, the second Trump administration initiated a new diplomatic push. In March 2025, President Trump sent a letter to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei proposing new negotiations with a 60-day deadline. Indirect talks mediated by Oman began in April 2025.
However, these talks have been complicated by dramatic escalation of conflict between Iran and Israel.
Far Apart Positions
Current negotiating positions remain far apart. America has insisted that any new deal must include a ban on all uranium enrichment on Iranian soil. Iran has rejected this, calling its right to enrich uranium non-negotiable and a matter of “national pride and dignity.”
The International Atomic Energy Agency remains central to the crisis. Its inspectors continue monitoring Iran’s declared nuclear sites, though access has been curtailed. IAEA reports confirm Iran has amassed a large stockpile of uranium enriched to 60%—enough for several nuclear weapons if enriched further to 90%.
However, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi has repeatedly stated the agency has no “proof of a systematic effort to move into a nuclear weapon” and that claims of an active weapons program are “speculation.”
Military Escalation
Recent military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities by Israel, later joined by the U.S. in June 2025, have further complicated the IAEA’s work, raising concerns about nuclear safety and potential radiological contamination.
These strikes led to cancellation of a planned round of U.S.-Iran talks, with Iranian officials stating negotiations are “unjustifiable” while under attack.
The future of U.S.-Iran diplomacy remains uncertain, caught between hope for negotiated settlement and the escalating cycle of conflict and confrontation.
The story of U.S.-Iran relations demonstrates how quickly strategic partnerships can collapse and how difficult they are to rebuild. What began as a century of friendship has become nearly half a century of enmity. Whether these two nations can find a path back from the brink will shape Middle Eastern stability and global security for years to come.
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