Relations between Iran and the United States

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US-Iranian relations
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The relations between Iran and the United States reach back to the 19th century. Diplomatic relations have not existed since 1980 . In response to the hostage-taking of Tehran , the United States broke it off in 1980; instead they maintain a “ virtual message ”.

As a protective power, Switzerland has represented US interests in Tehran since 1981 . Conversely, Iran is represented in Washington, DC by Pakistan . A limited military conflict even erupted in 2020 following the US killing of an Iranian general .

development

The beginnings of relations between America and Iran go back to the 19th century, when Iran placed more trust in the United States than in the colonial ambitions of Russia and Great Britain (→ “ The Great Game ”).

1925 to 1978: Shah period

Before the reforms carried out by Reza Shah Pahlavi from 1925, the Iranian state had no organization to enforce its power and was dependent on large landowners, tribal leaders, clergymen and foreign concessionaires. This reform process in order to be able to catch up with the modern industrial nations was abruptly interrupted by the Second World War. Great Britain and the Soviet Union invaded Iran in 1941 and forced the resignation of Reza Shah Pahlavi , who had wanted to remain neutral during World War II . The purpose was the supply of war partner Soviet Union through the United States via the so-called Persian Corridor . In 1943 the Allied Tehran Conference took place .

After Iran nationalized the national oil industry in 1951 ( -> " Abadan Crisis " ), the US CIA ( Central Intelligence Agency ) took part in the overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh ( -> " Operation Ajax " ). Originally viewed as a success, the US is now critical of its role in this coup .

During the time of the Shah , Iran and the USA were friendly states, especially under Mohammad Reza Pahlavi .

1979: Islamic Revolution

With the Islamic Revolution of 1979, however, the American-friendly heir to the throne Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was deposed and expelled; the United States was taken by surprise. The Shah, who suffered from terminal cancer, asked for treatment in the United States. Contrary to the warnings of the US embassy staff on site, who did not want to provoke the new regime under the leadership of Ayatollah Khomeini , the then US President Jimmy Carter decided to allow the Shah to enter the USA.

About two weeks later , a group of radical Khomeini supporters stormed the embassy building and took the US diplomats and embassy staff hostage. The hostage-taking, supported by Khomeini, lasted more than a year and helped him to expand his power. On April 4, 1980, the United States broke off diplomatic relations with Iran. After a failed attempt at liberation , it was not until 1981 that Algeria succeeded in ending the crisis: the 52 Americans were allowed to leave Iran unscathed, Iran undertook to meet its payment obligations to American creditors, the USA released frozen Iranian assets and lifted sanctions , and a separate arbitration tribunal , the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal, was created for disputes . Jimmy Carter was weakened by the hostage situation and defeated Ronald Reagan in the election campaign .

1980: First Gulf War

In 1980 the Iran-Iraq war broke out. The US removed Iraq from its list of terrorist states in 1982 so that US companies could sell weapons to the Iraqi side. The official rationale for supporting Iraq was freedom of navigation . However, in 1985 and 1986 the USA also secretly supplied weapons to Iran, which had been on the list of terrorist states since 1984 and was therefore under an embargo . Originally, this arms shipment was intended to move Iran to release US hostages in Lebanon; Ultimately, the scandal widened and went down in history as the Iran-Contra affair .

The Hezbollah was linked to the bombing of the US embassy in Beirut in 1983 , the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing and explosives attack in Khobar 1996th

After the US frigate USS Samuel B. Roberts (FFG-58) ran into an Iranian sea mine in April 1988 while on patrol northeast of Qatar and was badly damaged, the United States Navy struck back with Operation Praying Mantis . On July 3, 1988, the novel Aegis electronic combat system of the USS Vincennes (CG-49) had mistakenly identified an Iran Air civil Airbus A300B2 as an attacking enemy F-14 Tomcat . After the Iranian crew had not responded to attempts at contact, the American commander had the aircraft shot down. 290 people died, including 254 Iranians. In February 1996, the United States agreed to an arbitration undertaking to pay Iran US $ 131.8 million in damages.

1998: Election of Mohammad Chātami

With the election of Mohammad Chātami , relations relaxed from 1998; travel was made easier and embargoes relaxed. The rapprochement soon came to a standstill because of resistance from Iranian Conservatives on the one hand and US preconditions for further talks, including calls for a change in Iranian policy on Israel, the nuclear program and support for terrorism, on the other .

2001: After the terrorist attacks on September 11th

Immediately after the 9/11 attacks , Americans led by US Ambassador Ryan Crocker met several times in secret with Iranians in order to jointly fight the Taliban . This cooperation stalled after President George W. Bush described Iran as part of the axis of evil in January 2002 . In September 2019, Die Zeit reported on previously secret documents that Iran had been working on developing its own atomic bomb back in 2001. Corresponding information, which the BND had at its disposal thanks to a spy in the Iranian nuclear program, was passed on by the German secret service to the USA.

In June 2005, the newly appointed Foreign Minister Condoleezza Rice called on IAEA chief Mohammed el-Baradei to crack down on Iran.

In March 2006, supporters of the allegedly US-backed Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan killed 24 Iranian security forces.

In September 2006 the US Congress approved US $ 10 million for opposition groups in Iran ( Iran Freedom and Support Act ).

In April 2007, ABC News reported that the US has been supporting the Sunni terrorist organization Jundollah in Iran since 2005 . In February 2010, Iran intercepted Jundollah leader Abdolmalek Rigi and hanged him in June .

In January 2007, the US military searched the Iranian liaison office in Erbil shortly before it was officially recognized as a consulate and was thus protected by the Vienna Convention . The US captured Iranian diplomats and did not release them until July 2009.

Earlier, in April 2009, the Iranian-US journalist Roxana Saberi was sentenced to eight years in prison for espionage, but was released on parole by an appeals court in May.

The visit of the newly elected President Hassan Rohani to New York City in 2013 was seen as a step forward in relations between the two states . However, he turned down the offer to meet with President Obama. Instead, there was only a phone call between the two, for which Rohani was received with protests on his return in Tehran.

2014: nuclear deal

A rapprochement between Iran and the USA came about with the conclusion of the Treaty on the Iranian Nuclear Program on July 14, 2015 with the UN veto powers and Germany , with which the Iranian leadership achieved the exit of Iran from its international isolation ( Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action , "Joint Comprehensive Action Plan", JCPOA). With the Vienna Agreement of January 16, 2016, a short-term lifting of international sanctions was achieved. Because of the Iranian missile program, the USA imposed new sanctions the following day .

On May 8, 2018, the incumbent US President Donald Trump announced the withdrawal of the US from the nuclear deal with Iran , which sparked international concern; the European Union (EU), Russia and the People's Republic of China z. B. wanted to stick to it or negotiate a corresponding new agreement. The EU reactivated a law ( blocking statute ) introduced in 1996 to protect EU-based companies from US sanctions against Iran, Cuba and Libya : EU companies would be criminally forbidden from implementing US sanctions once it came back into force. As a result, Iran brought an action against the United States in the International Court of Justice in July 2018, based on the US-Iranian friendship treaty of 1955. The court issued an interim order against the US pending a decision on the main issue.

With the expiry of the exemptions granted by the USA in November 2018, with which business could continue for 6 months with Iran, the US government tightened the sanctions at the end of April 2019, with the aim of removing Iran from the five most important international buyers to cut off its oil. It was China, with 50% of exports, plus India, Japan, South Korea and Turkey. As of May 2, 2019, punitive measures against all companies involved in oil deals with Iran began. This created tensions in the Gulf of Oman in 2019 . The USA coordinated with Saudi Arabia at the same time in order to avoid supply bottlenecks for crude oil. The European Union proved helpless against the pressure of US sanctions. The attempt to continue trading with Iran via Instex , which was founded specifically for this purpose in January 2019 , was not accompanied by legal protection for European corporations potentially punished by the USA, while the European Union was actually following the US sanctions for its own companies exempted from punishment. Under these conditions, many companies withdrew from trading in Iran.

On June 21, 2019, Donald Trump reportedly ordered an attack on Iran, which he reportedly withdrew ten minutes before the order began.

On July 8, 2019, Iran informed the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that the uranium enrichment limit of 3.67 percent set in the agreement had already been exceeded the day before. The Iranian Atomic Energy Agency (AEOI) stated that it initially only wanted to enrich uranium up to 4.5 percent. At the same time, the country left options open for diplomatic solutions, including for the US, should it lift its sanctions against Iran. For the time being, Iran not only enriched the uranium in the facilities it was allowed to inadmissibly; he also exceeded the contractually permitted quantity limits for processing uranium and increased the speed of his centrifuges. With the attack on Abqaiq and Churais in Saudi Arabia in September 2019, mutual accusations and threats came up again.

2020: military conflict

On January 3, 2020, the Iranian General Qasem Soleimani was deliberately killed by a US drone . The Iranian UN ambassador described this act as state terrorism . In a letter to the United Nations Security Council , the Iranian leadership reserved the right to self-defense. Iranian protesters attacked the American embassy in the days following Soleimani's death. In response, the United States deployed additional soldiers in the area. Iran announced that after Soleimani was killed, it would no longer adhere to the 2015 nuclear deal and instead would enrich uranium indefinitely; he also announced retaliation to the USA. This took place on January 8, 2020, five days after Soleimani was killed, in the form of a rocket attack by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards on two US military bases in Iraq, the Ain al-Assad air base in the center of the country and a base north of the city of Erbil . As a result of the Iranian counter-attack, US President Trump announced further economic sanctions against Iran.

A few hours after the attack on Iran, the plane on Ukrainian flight PS752 , which was en route to Kiev from Tehran , crashed shortly after take-off. All 176 inmates were killed. After an initial denial , Iran took full responsibility on January 11, 2020 and declared human error to be the cause of the “accidental shooting down” of the machine with anti-aircraft missiles . At the same time, full clarification and compensation for the bereaved was promised.

On June 29, Iran issued an arrest warrant for President Trump and 35 others for "murder and terrorism" following the drone attack on General Soleimani, and asked Interpol to assist with Trump's detention. However, Interpol refused to issue an international arrest warrant against the president.

Economic relations

Before the Islamic Revolution, the US was Iran's most important economic and military partner. In 1995 President Bill Clinton imposed new economic sanctions , which were extended by President Bush.

The 2008 trading volume was $ 623 million; while US exports to Iran rose year-on-year to $ 537 million, US imports from Iran fell to $ 86 million. Indirect trade via third countries, which circumvents embargoes, is not included in these figures. In 2010 US exports were practically halved to $ 281.8 million.

The National Iranian American Council estimates that the US has lost at least $ 135 billion in sanctions since 1995.

Humanitarian aid deliveries are still exempt from the sanctions.

Advocacy groups

The two states broke off their relations with one another on April 4, 1980. Iranian diplomatic interests were henceforth represented by the Algerian embassy . In the wake of the Algerian civil war , the Algerian government accused Iran of supporting the Groupe Islamique Armé and, in turn, severed its relations with Iran. That is why the Pakistani embassy has been representing Iranian interests in Washington since March 1992 .

The interests of the United States of America in Iran are represented by the Swiss embassy.

See also

Web links

Commons : American-Iranian Relations  - Collection of Pictures, Videos, and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Fact Sheet: US Relations With Iran ( Memento of the original from August 19, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. - US State Department 2013 @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.state.gov
  2. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from October 4, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / iran.usembassy.gov
  3. ^ The two states signed the first treaty in 1856
  4. ↑ Ervand Abrahamian: A History of Modern Iran . Cambridge University Press, 2008, ISBN 978-0-521-52891-7 , pp. 62 .
  5. ↑ Monika Gronke: History of Iran, From Islamization to the Present . 3. Edition. CH Beck Verlag, 2009, ISBN 978-3-406-48021-8 , p. 89-90 .
  6. ↑ transcripts.cnn.com: US Comes Clean About The Coup In Iran : "US secretary of state Madeleine Albright made an apology to the people of Iran" (" US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright apologized to the Iranian people")
  7. ^ Wm. Daugherty: Jimmy Carter and the 1979 Decision to Admit the Shah into the United States - April 2003
  8. ↑ Federal Agency for Civic Education: Hostage-taking in Tehran - bpb. In: bpb.de. January 20, 2016, accessed February 5, 2017 .
  9. ↑ a b c d Tom Lansford (Ed.): Political Handbook of the World 2015 . SAGE Publications, Inc., Thousand Oaks, ISBN 978-1-4833-7157-3 , pp. 679 .
  10. ↑ Nikki Keddie: Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution , Yale University Press, 2003, p. 272.
  11. ↑ http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/09/30/the-shadow-commander
  12. ↑ Iran And The Axis Of Evil - Analysis - The Long Reach Of A Speech
  13. ↑ Erich Follath / Georg Mascolo / Holger Stark : Atomic agreement: "If someone gets up to kill you, kill him first" . The time . Edition 37/2019. September 5, 2019 (advance publication on zeit.de on September 4, 2019).
  14. ↑ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4075496.stm
  15. ↑ http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/061127fa_fact
  16. ↑ Archive link ( memento of the original from April 30, 2012 on WebCite ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / blogs.abcnews.com
  17. ↑ http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=126963§ionid=351020101
  18. ↑ http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/meast/07/09/iraq.iranians.released/
  19. ↑ http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/09/28/us-iran-usa-idUSBRE98R06720130928
  20. ^ Henner Fürtig : The nuclear treaty with Iran: successful settlement of an international crisis GIGA Focus 2015 No. 4; Retrieved January 19, 2016.
  21. ↑ Nuclear deal: USA and EU lift sanctions against Iran on ZEIT online January 16, 2016; accessed on January 18, 2016.
  22. ↑ Controversial missile program: USA impose new sanctions on Iran Spiegel online January 17, 2016; Retrieved January 19, 2016.
  23. ↑ Iran threatens new sanctions: USA withdraw from nuclear agreement. In: n-tv.de . May 8, 2018, accessed January 4, 2020.
  24. ↑ Europe and Iran: New nuclear deal after Trump's exit? In: welt.de. May 20, 2018. Retrieved May 20, 2018 .
  25. ↑ Markus Becker: New law: This is how the EU wants to slow down Trump's Iran sanctions. In: Spiegel Online. May 18, 2018, accessed May 20, 2018 .
  26. ↑ Jakob Reimann: US sanctions - Iran sued Trump administration in The Hague. In: Friday. July 18, 2018, accessed October 31, 2018 .
  27. ↑ International Court of Justice: United States must partially lift sanctions against Iran. In: faz.net. October 3, 2018, accessed October 31, 2018 .
  28. ^ Edward Wong and Clifford Krauss: "US Moves to Stop All Nations From Buying Iranian Oil, but China Is Defiant" New York Times of April 22, 2019
  29. ↑ Leonid Bershidsky: "Europe Should Challenge the US Sanctions on Iran" Bloomberg on May 8, 2019
  30. ↑ Trump claims to have stopped the attack on Iran ten minutes before the start . Mirror online. June 21, 2019
  31. ↑ Katrin Kleinbram: Turning away from the Iran nuclear deal takes another step . tagesschau.de. 7th September 2019
  32. ↑ Iran: Killing of General Soleimani by the USA is "state terrorism". In: derstandard.at . January 4, 2020, accessed January 4, 2020.
  33. ↑ Alex Johnson, Abigail Williams, Mosheh Gains, Dan De Luce: US sending hundreds of troops to Mideast after attack on Iraq embassy compound. In: Euronews.com . January 1, 2020, accessed on January 5, 2020.
  34. ↑ Martin Chulov, Ghaith Abdul-Ahad: Iran ends nuclear deal commitments as fallout from Suleimani killing spreads. In: theguardian.com . January 5, 2019, accessed January 9, 2020.
  35. ↑ Iran fires missiles at US bases in Iraq - Trump speaks up. In: welt.de. January 8, 2020, accessed January 8, 2020 .
  36. ↑ DER SPIEGEL: USA imposes new sanctions on Iran - DER SPIEGEL - politics. Retrieved January 11, 2020 .
  37. ↑ tagesschau.de: Airplane shooting down: Serious "mistake" of the Revolutionary Guard. Retrieved January 11, 2020 .
  38. ↑ After a crazy arrest plan for Trump: Iran goes for it - "underground rocket cities" - Merkur.de, accessed on July 7, 2020
  39. ↑ Archive link ( Memento of the original from July 26, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.  @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / tehrantimes.com
  40. ↑ US Iran Sanctions Exempt Food, Medicine, Remittances - US State Department 2013
  41. ↑ Bernard Hourcade: Géopolitique de l'Iran . 1st edition. Armand Colin, Paris 2010, ISBN 978-2-200-35116-8 , pp. 231 .