America vs Iran: Seventy Years of Conflict

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America and Iran once stood as close allies. The United States helped modernize Iran and defended its sovereignty against imperial powers. Today, they are locked in one of the world’s most dangerous rivalries.

This transformation is the result of a complex, escalating cycle of betrayals and confrontations spanning seven decades. From CIA coups to hostage crises, from secret arms deals to nuclear standoffs, each chapter has deepened the mistrust and pushed both nations closer to war.

Understanding this history reveals how strategic partnerships can collapse catastrophically—and why some conflicts seem impossible to resolve.

Timeline of Confrontation

The 1953 Coup

Early Friendship

Formal relations between America and Persia began in the mid-19th century. For decades, the relationship was positive if distant. Persian leaders, wary of British and Russian colonial ambitions during the “Great Game,” viewed America as more trustworthy.

After World War II, Iran’s strategic importance grew immensely. Its vast oil reserves were critical to rebuilding Western Europe, and its border with the Soviet Union made it a crucial Cold War front line. U.S. policy focused on preventing Iran from falling under Soviet control.

This Cold War logic collided with Iranian nationalism in 1951. Iran’s parliament, led by charismatic Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, voted to nationalize the country’s oil industry.

For decades, the British-controlled Anglo-Iranian Oil Company reaped enormous profits while Iran received only a small fraction. Mossadegh and his supporters saw nationalization as righteous sovereignty, reclaiming Iran’s most valuable resource from foreign exploitation.

Britain was furious. It imposed a crippling oil embargo and organized an international boycott of Iranian oil.

Operation Ajax

Initially, America was hesitant to intervene. But British intelligence began framing Mossadegh as a threat to Western security, warning that his policies created openings for Iran’s pro-Soviet Tudeh Party to seize power.

The Eisenhower administration, deeply concerned about potential communist takeover in a country bordering Soviet satellites, was persuaded that action was necessary.

The result was Operation TPAJAX, a covert CIA operation planned with Britain’s MI6 to overthrow Iran’s democratically elected government. Declassified documents confirm the agency’s central role.

With a $1 million budget, CIA operatives led by Kermit Roosevelt Jr. (Theodore Roosevelt’s grandson) orchestrated a destabilization campaign. They planted propaganda in newspapers, bribed politicians and clergy, and financed street protests to create chaos.

The coup reached its climax on August 19, 1953. With support from key Iranian military officers loyal to the monarch, pro-Shah forces prevailed. Mossadegh was arrested, tried, and spent his remaining years under house arrest.

The Shah, who had briefly fled the country, was flown back and reinstated with absolute power.

The Aftermath

In Washington and London, the coup was hailed as a masterful Cold War victory that secured a vital ally and precious oil resources. As reward for its assistance, America was granted significant share of Iran’s oil wealth. The 1954 Consortium Agreement gave American companies a 40% stake in Iran’s nationalized oil industry for 25 years.

But the coup left a poisonous legacy. It destroyed Iran’s democratic movement and replaced it with an authoritarian monarchy increasingly dependent on American support.

This foreign intervention painted America as a semi-colonial power, no different from the British and Russians that Iranians had long mistrusted.

The event created a fundamental disconnect in national narratives. For America, 1953 was a pragmatic Cold War action quickly forgotten by the public. For generations of Iranians, it became the foundational story of American treachery—living proof that the United States couldn’t be trusted and that its democratic rhetoric covered predatory interests.

This aversion to foreign meddling became woven into Iran’s national identity, providing fertile ground for the anti-American revolution that would come.

The Shah’s Alliance

America’s Regional Policeman

Following 1953, Iran became a cornerstone of American Middle East policy. For the next quarter-century, the authoritarian Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was one of Washington’s closest allies.

Yet this alliance was inherently unstable. The very policies America pursued to bolster the Shah—massive arms sales and brutal internal security—fueled the popular resentment that would ultimately destroy the monarchy.

Under the Shah, Iran became America’s “regional policeman” in the Persian Gulf, a bulwark against Soviet influence and guarantor of oil flows to the West.

This partnership was cemented during President Nixon’s 1972 Tehran visit. Seeking help to protect U.S. interests and counter Soviet-allied Iraq, Nixon gave the Shah a virtual “blank check,” promising Iran could purchase any non-nuclear American weapons it desired.

Military Buildup

Fueled by skyrocketing oil profits after the 1973 Arab oil embargo, the Shah went on a massive military spending spree. Iran’s defense budget increased 800% as it acquired vast quantities of sophisticated American weaponry—a buildup that unsettled even some U.S. officials.

Iran’s growing market clout, solidified by its founding membership in OPEC in 1960, made it an even more crucial partner for Washington.

The White Revolution

Domestically, the Shah embarked on aggressive social and economic Westernization called the “White Revolution.” This top-down modernization included land redistribution, expanded women’s rights, and improved literacy and public health.

While these reforms brought economic growth and modernized Iranian society, they created deep social and political fissures.

Land reforms alienated the powerful clerical establishment and traditional landowners. Rapid Westernization and secularization was viewed by many pious Muslims as corrupting Iran’s Islamic identity.

In this context, charismatic religious leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini rose to prominence. His fierce denunciations of the Shah’s reforms and American ties led to his arrest and forced exile in 1964. But his sermons continued being smuggled into Iran, inspiring growing religious opposition.

The economic boom was unevenly distributed and led to high inflation, creating rising expectations the government ultimately failed to satisfy.

SAVAK

To enforce his rule and crush opposition, the Shah relied on a pervasive and brutal secret police force. In 1957, with direct CIA and Israeli intelligence assistance, Iran established SAVAK.

Declassified CIA documents confirm America’s key role in SAVAK’s formation, providing funding and training.

A U.S. Army colonel was sent to Tehran to help assemble the organization’s nucleus. A permanent team of five CIA officers later replaced him to train the first SAVAK generation in surveillance and interrogation methods.

SAVAK quickly became what one historian called the “most hated and feared institution” in Iran. It had virtually unlimited powers to censor media, screen government employees, and hunt dissidents.

The organization became notorious for arbitrary arrest, extensive surveillance, and systematic torture and execution of thousands of political prisoners. This state-sponsored terror, carried out by an American-created force, was a primary driver of revolutionary anger.

America’s goal of creating stable, pro-Western Iran was pursued by empowering the Shah with advanced weaponry for external defense and formidable security apparatus for internal control. But this strategy contained a fatal flaw.

The Shah used these American-supplied tools to construct a deeply repressive autocracy that growing numbers of Iranians viewed as an illegitimate puppet regime. The policies designed to secure American interests directly generated anti-American revolutionary backlash.

When President Carter visited Tehran on New Year’s Eve 1977 and toasted the Shah, calling Iran “an island of stability in one of the more troubled areas of the world,” he demonstrated how profoundly out of touch Washington was with ground reality.

That island of stability was actually a volcano of dissent, fueled by years of U.S.-backed repression and poised to erupt.

The 1979 Revolution

The Shah Falls

The year 1979 marks the great schism in U.S.-Iran relations, when an indispensable ally transformed seemingly overnight into an implacable ideological foe.

By 1978, simmering discontent had boiled over into mass protests. A coalition of secular intellectuals, leftist activists, and disaffected citizens united in opposition to the Shah’s regime took to the streets.

The cycle of protest and repression escalated violently. Government troops fired on demonstrators, and each funeral for the dead sparked new protests 40 days later, in accordance with Shiite tradition, creating relentless waves of opposition.

The Shah, weakened by cancer and shocked by hostility’s scale, wavered between concession and crackdown before finally fleeing Iran in January 1979.

This created a power vacuum swiftly filled by Ayatollah Khomeini, who returned from 14 years in exile to a hero’s welcome. Though many groups participated in the revolution, Khomeini’s religious faction ultimately consolidated power, establishing an Islamic theocracy.

Khomeini’s political ideology was fundamentally anti-American. He identified America as the “Great Satan,” the primary rival to his vision of an Islamic Republic governed by Shia law.

In his writings and sermons, he argued America was interested only in exploiting Iran’s oil and that its cultural influence was a corrupting force threatening Iran’s Islamic future.

The Hostage Crisis

The revolution’s anti-American fervor reached its zenith in late 1979. The immediate trigger was President Carter’s decision to allow the exiled and ailing Shah to enter America for cancer treatment in October.

This act, seen in Washington as humanitarian gesture toward a former ally, was interpreted in Tehran as threatening provocation—the first step in a plot to repeat the 1953 coup and reinstate the Shah.

On November 4, 1979, radical Iranian students calling themselves the “Muslim Student Followers of the Imam’s Line” stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. They seized the compound and took 66 Americans hostage, demanding the Shah’s extradition to stand trial.

While Khomeini may not have ordered the takeover, he quickly endorsed it, calling the embassy a “spy den” and using the crisis to rally Iranians, consolidate power, and sideline moderate political factions.

For 444 days, the crisis dominated American headlines. Hostages were paraded blindfolded before television cameras, subjected to mock executions, and held in constant fear for their lives.

America responded by freezing billions in Iranian assets and imposing an embargo, but negotiations went nowhere. On April 7, 1980, the U.S. formally severed diplomatic relations with Iran—a break that remains in effect today.

Operation Eagle Claw

With diplomatic channels closed, Carter authorized a high-stakes military rescue mission, Operation Eagle Claw, in April 1980.

The complex plan involved helicopters and transport planes meeting at a remote desert staging area inside Iran. The mission ended in catastrophic failure.

A severe desert sandstorm disabled several helicopters, and during withdrawal, one helicopter collided with a C-130 transport aircraft. The crash killed eight U.S. service members.

The failed mission was a profound national humiliation, amplifying America’s sense of powerlessness and contributing significantly to Carter’s landslide defeat in the 1980 election.

The 52 remaining hostages were finally released on January 20, 1981, just minutes after Ronald Reagan was sworn in as president.

Mirror Traumas

The events of 1953 and 1979 created mirror-image traumas that have defined the U.S.-Iran relationship ever since.

For Iran, the 1953 coup is the defining trauma—an unforgivable violation of sovereignty proving America’s malign intent. The hostage crisis, from this perspective, was justified reaction, desperate self-defense against a superpower that had overthrown its government.

For America, which has largely ignored or downplayed the 1953 coup in public discourse, the 1979 hostage crisis is the foundational trauma—an unprovoked and barbaric act of terrorism against its diplomats by an irrational and ungrateful regime.

This fundamental impasse, where neither side acknowledges the legitimacy of the other’s core grievance, has created an almost unbridgeable psychological and political chasm, preventing meaningful or lasting reconciliation.

The 1980s Shadow War

Iran-Iraq War

The 1980s saw U.S.-Iran conflict deepen and institutionalize, moving from diplomatic crisis to multi-front shadow war characterized by overt hostility, covert dealings, direct military confrontation, and tragic civilian disaster.

In September 1980, Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, hoping to exploit Iran’s post-revolutionary chaos, launched a full-scale invasion, starting a brutal eight-year war.

Official U.S. policy was neutrality, but Washington “tilted” decisively toward Iraq. The primary strategic interest was preventing Iranian victory, which policymakers feared would allow Khomeini’s revolutionary ideology to sweep the Persian Gulf and threaten world energy supplies.

Support for Iraq was extensive. America provided Saddam’s regime with billions in economic aid, shared critical battlefield intelligence gathered by the CIA to thwart Iranian offensives, supplied dual-use technology, and offered special operations training.

This support continued even as America was fully aware that Iraq was the initial aggressor and was using chemical weapons on an industrial scale against both Iranian troops and its own Kurdish population.

For Iran, U.S. backing for Saddam Hussein was ultimate proof that America was determined to destroy the Islamic Republic by any means necessary.

Iran-Contra Scandal

In stunning duplicity, even as the Reagan administration publicly supported Iraq and urged other nations not to sell weapons to Iran, a small group of senior officials was secretly doing the exact opposite.

In what became the Iran-Contra Affair, the administration orchestrated covert operations to sell American-made anti-tank missiles and other weapons to the Islamic Republic.

The operation had two illegal objectives. First was trading arms for hostages—persuading Iran to use its influence with Hezbollah to secure release of seven American hostages in Lebanon.

Second was using profits from secret arms sales to illegally fund the Contras, right-wing guerrilla forces fighting Nicaragua’s leftist Sandinista government. This funding directly violated the Boland Amendment, a law explicitly prohibiting such aid.

When the complex scheme was exposed in late 1986, it erupted into the biggest Reagan administration political scandal, comparable to Watergate. The affair shattered the administration’s credibility and confirmed to both Iranians and Iraqis that America was a manipulative and untrustworthy actor, willing to play both sides of a bloody war for cynical purposes.

Direct Naval Combat

By the late 1980s, the Iran-Iraq War had escalated into the Persian Gulf in the “Tanker War,” with both sides attacking neutral oil shipping. In 1987, the U.S. Navy began escorting re-flagged Kuwaiti tankers in Operation Earnest Will to ensure free oil flow.

Tensions peaked in April 1988 after the American frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts struck an Iranian mine, tearing a large hole in its hull.

In retaliation, America launched Operation Praying Mantis on April 18, 1988. In what remains the largest U.S. naval surface engagement since World War II, American warships and aircraft attacked Iranian forces in a swift, devastating one-day battle.

America destroyed two Iranian oil platforms being used as military command posts and sank or severely damaged several Iranian naval vessels, including a frigate and multiple gunboats.

The operation was a decisive demonstration of American military superiority and effectively ended Iran’s ability to challenge the U.S. Navy in the Gulf. It forced Iranian leaders to recognize they couldn’t win conventional military confrontation with America—a lesson that pushed them to invest more heavily in asymmetric strategies like proxy warfare in coming decades.

Flight 655 Tragedy

Just months later, on July 3, 1988, the conflict produced its most tragic incident. The U.S. Navy cruiser USS Vincennes, operating in tense, crowded Strait of Hormuz waters, mistakenly identified Iran Air Flight 655—a civilian Airbus A300 on routine flight to Dubai—as an attacking F-14 fighter jet.

The Vincennes fired two surface-to-air missiles, destroying the airliner and killing all 290 passengers and crew.

The U.S. government called the downing a terrible, regrettable accident occurring in combat conditions. It later provided financial compensation to victims’ families but never issued formal apology or admitted wrongdoing.

For Iranians, however, the incident was seen as deliberate barbarism, an intentional civilian massacre that crystallized the image of America as the “Great Satan.” The event became powerful, enduring anti-American propaganda for the Iranian regime—a martyrdom story proving the depths of American cruelty.

The Nuclear Standoff

From Atoms for Peace to Secret Weapons

In the 21st century, the central arena of U.S.-Iran conflict shifted to a high-stakes standoff over Iran’s nuclear program. This dispute transformed the relationship, elevating it from geopolitical rivalry to what many in Washington viewed as potential existential threat.

Ironically, Iran’s nuclear program was born with American assistance. In 1957, as part of President Eisenhower’s “Atoms for Peace” initiative, America signed a civil nuclear cooperation agreement with the Shah’s government.

The U.S. provided Iran with its first 5-megawatt research reactor in Tehran and supplied it with highly enriched, weapons-grade uranium fuel. Iran signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1968, committing not to pursue nuclear weapons.

After the 1979 revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini initially viewed the nuclear program as a relic of Western influence and paused it. But the program was secretly revived during the brutal Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s.

During the 1990s, Iran began covertly acquiring technology and expertise for a full nuclear fuel cycle. It received crucial assistance from the nuclear smuggling network run by Pakistani scientist A.Q. Khan, who provided designs for gas centrifuges used for uranium enrichment.

The clandestine program’s cover was blown in August 2002, when an Iranian opposition group publicly revealed two secret, undeclared nuclear facilities: a large-scale uranium enrichment plant at Natanz and a heavy-water production facility at Arak.

The revelations triggered an international crisis and launched intensive, years-long investigation by the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog.

The JCPOA

Years of escalating U.S. and international sanctions designed to cripple Iran’s economy and halt nuclear progress were paired with intense diplomatic negotiations.

This process culminated on July 14, 2015, with the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or Iran nuclear deal. The historic agreement was reached between Iran and the P5+1 group: America, United Kingdom, France, Russia, China, and Germany.

The JCPOA was complex technical agreement built on simple premise: verifiable nuclear restrictions in exchange for sanctions relief. Key provisions were designed to block all of Iran’s potential pathways to nuclear weapons:

Uranium enrichment: Iran agreed to drastically reduce operating centrifuges and cap uranium enrichment at 3.67% purity, suitable for power generation but far below the 90% required for bombs.

Uranium stockpile: Iran was required to reduce its stockpile of low-enriched uranium by 98%, to just 300 kilograms.

Plutonium path: Iran agreed to redesign its heavy-water reactor at Arak so it couldn’t produce weapons-grade plutonium.

Inspections: Iran accepted the most intrusive verification and monitoring regime ever negotiated, allowing IAEA inspectors continuous access to declared nuclear sites.

In return, America, the European Union, and the UN lifted crippling nuclear-related economic sanctions, unfreezing billions in Iranian assets and allowing Iran to sell oil on world markets again.

The deal was hailed as a landmark achievement of multilateral diplomacy that successfully averted potential war. Most experts assessed that its provisions extended Iran’s “breakout time”—the time needed to produce enough fissile material for one weapon—from a few months to at least a year.

The IAEA repeatedly verified Iran’s full compliance.

Maximum Pressure

Despite verified Iranian compliance, the JCPOA was fiercely opposed by many in America, as well as by Israel and Saudi Arabia. Critics argued that its “sunset clauses,” allowing certain restrictions to expire after 10-15 years, were unacceptable and that the deal failed to address Iran’s ballistic missile program or destabilizing regional activities.

On May 8, 2018, President Trump fulfilled a key campaign promise by unilaterally withdrawing America from the JCPOA, calling it a “horrible, one-sided deal that should have never, ever been made.”

The administration immediately re-imposed all previous sanctions and added new ones as part of a “maximum pressure” campaign. The stated goal was exerting such extreme economic pain on Iran that it would be forced to capitulate and negotiate a new, more comprehensive agreement addressing all of Washington’s concerns.

The policy had the opposite effect. Other deal parties—Europe, Russia, and China—were unable to provide Iran with promised economic benefits in the face of powerful U.S. secondary sanctions.

Iran Responds

In response, Iran adopted a policy of “maximum resistance.” Starting in 2019, it began systematically and openly breaching JCPOA limits.

It installed and operated advanced centrifuges, increased its stockpile of enriched uranium, and began enriching to progressively higher purity levels: first to 20%, then to 60%, and in February 2023, IAEA inspectors detected particles enriched to 83.7% purity—a short technical step from weapons-grade.

The “maximum pressure” campaign created a dangerous paradox. The policy designed to eliminate the Iranian nuclear threat had instead dismantled the very agreement that constrained it.

As a result, Iran’s nuclear program became more advanced and less transparent than ever before, and its breakout time shrank from over a year back down to a matter of weeks.

The JCPOA failure and subsequent escalation left both sides with fewer diplomatic options and pushed the region closer to major military conflict.

Proxy Wars and Assassinations

The Axis of Resistance

Unable to match America in conventional military power, Iran has spent decades perfecting asymmetric warfare strategy. It projects power and challenges adversaries—primarily the U.S. and Israel—through a network of allied non-state actors and proxy forces across the Middle East.

This “shadow war” has defined modern conflict, but recent events have seen violence spill into the open, shattering long-standing rules of engagement and pushing the region into a dangerously unpredictable era.

Iran’s primary tool for regional influence is its “Axis of Resistance,” a network of state and non-state partners managed by the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force (IRGC-QF).

This network allows Iran to wage war by proxy, creating strategic buffer that keeps conflicts far from its borders while holding enemies’ interests under constant threat. This strategy provides plausible deniability and serves as powerful deterrent against direct attack on Iranian soil.

Key network nodes include:

Hezbollah in Lebanon: Iran’s most powerful and successful proxy, a formidable political and military force receiving substantial funding, training, and advanced weaponry from Tehran.

Shiite militias in Iraq and Syria: Following the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, Iran cultivated deep ties with numerous Shiite militias. In Syria, Iran intervened heavily in the civil war to save its key ally Bashar al-Assad’s regime, which provides critical land bridge for supplying weapons to Hezbollah.

The Houthis in Yemen: Iran has provided significant support, including advanced drones and ballistic missiles, to Houthi rebels in Yemen’s civil war. The Houthis have used these weapons to attack Saudi Arabia and, more recently, to disrupt global shipping in the Red Sea.

Regional Confrontation

Across the region, this proxy network has brought Iranian and American forces into frequent, often deadly confrontation.

In Iraq, Iran-backed militias have launched hundreds of rocket and drone attacks against U.S. military bases and diplomatic facilities.

In Syria, Iran’s military entrenchment has prompted hundreds of Israeli airstrikes aimed at degrading Iranian capabilities and interdicting weapons shipments.

In Yemen, the U.S. Navy has repeatedly intercepted Iranian weapons shipments bound for the Houthis and conducted strikes to degrade their ability to attack shipping lanes.

Soleimani Assassination

The shadow war escalated dramatically on January 3, 2020, when a U.S. drone strike at Baghdad’s international airport killed General Qasem Soleimani, the powerful and revered commander of the IRGC-QF.

Soleimani was the architect of Iran’s entire regional strategy, a figure of immense influence who personally managed the proxy network. The Trump administration justified the assassination as preemptive action to prevent imminent attacks on American personnel.

Iran retaliated days later by launching a barrage of ballistic missiles at two Iraqi bases housing U.S. troops, causing traumatic brain injuries to more than 100 American service members.

While the two sides narrowly avoided full-scale war, the assassination dealt devastating blow to Iran’s regional power structure. Soleimani’s successor, Esmail Qaani, has been unable to replicate his predecessor’s personal charisma and deep-rooted relationships with proxy leaders.

This has led to a more fragmented and less coordinated “Axis of Resistance,” significantly weakening Iran’s control and operational effectiveness across the Middle East.

Current Crisis

October 7 and Regional War

The conflict entered its most dangerous phase following the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas, an Iranian-backed group. In solidarity, Iran’s other proxies, particularly Hezbollah and the Houthis, immediately began launching attacks on Israel and U.S. interests, regionalizing the conflict.

This triggered ferocious response. Israel, with U.S. support, launched devastating campaigns that severely degraded the military capabilities of Hamas and Hezbollah and contributed to the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria, a key pillar of Iran’s regional network.

The “Axis of Resistance,” once Iran’s primary deterrent, was exposed as exhausted and unable to meaningfully protect Iran itself.

Direct State Conflict

The long-standing taboo against direct state-on-state conflict was shattered in April 2024. After a suspected Israeli airstrike killed senior IRGC commanders at an Iranian consular building in Damascus, Iran retaliated by launching over 300 drones and missiles in its first-ever direct military attack on Israeli territory.

The attack was almost entirely thwarted by coordinated defense involving Israel, America, and other regional and European partners.

This series of events has plunged Tehran into profound strategic crisis. The two pillars of its national security strategy for the past 40 years—the proxy network as shield and the nuclear program as insurance policy—are both crumbling.

Iran’s Strategic Collapse

The proxy shield has been shattered, and the nuclear program, while more advanced than ever, has become primary justification for potential preemptive attack by Israel or America.

This unraveling of Iran’s grand strategy hasn’t ended the conflict, but it has made the region more volatile than ever. A weakened and cornered Iran may act in more desperate ways, while its adversaries weigh the risks of decisive, regime-altering confrontation.

Recent military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities by Israel, later joined by America in June 2025, have further escalated tensions. These strikes have raised concerns about nuclear safety and potential radiological contamination.

The attacks led to cancellation of planned U.S.-Iran talks, with Iranian officials stating negotiations are “unjustifiable” while under attack.

Uncertain Future

The current crisis represents the culmination of seven decades of escalating conflict. What began with the 1953 coup has evolved into a comprehensive confrontation encompassing nuclear weapons, regional proxy wars, direct military strikes, and the threat of regime change.

Both sides remain locked in cycles of action and reaction, each convinced of the other’s malign intent. The original grievances—Iran’s anger over the 1953 coup and America’s trauma from the 1979 hostage crisis—continue to shape perceptions and policy decisions.

The collapse of Iran’s regional proxy network and the advancement of its nuclear program have created new dynamics. Iran faces perhaps its weakest strategic position since the Islamic Revolution, while America and its allies confront the specter of a nuclear-armed Iran or the necessity of military action to prevent it.

Whether these dynamics lead to negotiated settlement, military confrontation, or regime change in Iran will depend on decisions made in Washington, Tehran, and regional capitals in the coming months and years.

The relationship that began with friendship and cooperation in the 19th century, peaked with the strategic alliance of the Cold War era, and collapsed into enmity after 1979, now stands at perhaps its most dangerous juncture. The decisions made today will determine whether this conflict escalates into full-scale war or finds some path toward resolution.

The stakes extend far beyond bilateral relations. The outcome will shape Middle Eastern stability, global energy markets, nuclear nonproliferation efforts, and the broader international order for decades to come.

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