Possible Consequences of the U.S. War Against Iran
By Alan Singer
Great Britain and the United States have interfered in Iran’s domestic affairs since the end of World War 1 when the British backed a military coup installing a Persian army officer as Shah or King. Shah Reza Khan Pahlavi renamed Persia “Iran” in 1935. The British overthrew the Shah during World War II for keeping Iran neutral and replaced him with his more pliable son Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. The concern for both the British and Americans has always been control over Iranian oil and keeping the strategic Strait of Hormuz open to provide access to oil from Kuwait, Iraq and Saudi Arabian oil fields.
In 1951 Mohammed Mosaddegh became Prime Minister of Iran and the country nationalized the British-owned oil industry. In response, in 1953 the CIA and the British intelligence agency backed a coup that overthrow Mosaddegh and restored Pahlavi to power to ensure pro-Western alignment and secure oil interests. For the next 25 years Pahlavi did the bidding of the United States and Great Britain while public unrest against his authoritarian rule surged. In 1979 he fled the country and the Iranian Revolution created an Islamic Republic that declared the U.S. was the “Great Satan.” As part of the revolution the American embassy was seized and 52 Americans were held hostage for over a year.
After the hostages were released the rocky relationship between the United States and Iran continued. The United States supported an Iraqi invasion of Iran in the 1980s and attacks on shipping by both sides raised the tension between the two countries. The Clinton and Bush administrations placed economic sanctions of Iran for supporting anti-Israeli allies and because it was suspected of trying to develop nuclear weapons. Ultimately the Obama administration reached an agreement with Iran that it would not because a nuclear power and the sanctions were lifted, however when Trump became President the first time he reneged on the deal and designated Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a Foreign Terrorist Organization. In 2020 before leaving office Trump ordered the assassination of Iran’s top general Qassem Soleimani in a drone strike at a Baghdad airport in Iraq.
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Source: Daily Kos
Image source: clipart-library.com
Alan Singer is a historian and teacher educator at Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York. His most recent books are Social Studies for Secondary Schools, 5th edition (Routledge, 2024) and Class-Conscious Coal Miners (SUNY Press, 2024). Blogs, tweets, essays, interviews, and e-blasts present his views and not those of Hofstra University.