Opinion: Why Iran hates America

Editor’s note: Hosted by Fareed Zakaria Fareed Zakaria GPS, airs Sundays at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. ET on CNN..Follow Farid In X, Read news, analysis and insights from Farid and his team. Daily CNN Newsletter Farid’s Global Briefing. The views expressed in this commentary are his own.read more CNN opinion.

Airing Sunday, February 25th at 8pm ET on CNN and CNNi, Fareed explores the past, present and future of the hostile relationship between the United States and Iran. In a CNN special report titled “Why Iran Hates America,” he said:

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October 7th was the day that changed the world. A brutal surprise attack by Hamas in Israel was followed by a massive and deadly retaliatory war in Gaza.

The United States, a key security power in the Middle East and with allies and adversaries in the region, now has a target on its back. In late January, an Iranian-backed Iraqi militia killed three American soldiers in a drone strike on a US military base in Jordan, prompting the US to launch retaliatory strikes against Iranian-backed forces across the region. The U.S. government is also engaged in a conflict with Yemen’s Houthis, another Iranian ally, who are rebelling against U.S. naval power by disrupting global shipping through the Red Sea, a key transit point for cargo ships. are also involved.

As a result, concerns about a larger-scale war in the Middle East are only increasing. Hostile relations with Iran, especially the United States, remain firmly at the center.

why is that? What caused the tensions between Washington and Tehran that are now at the center of the world’s most potentially explosive conflict?

The story is more complicated than that, as I said in CNN’s special report, “Why Iran Hates America,” which airs Sundays at 8pm and 11pm ET. But suffice it to say that the relationship between the United States and Iran has been adversarial and confrontational for more than 40 years.

No matter what happens in the world, whether it’s the fall of communism or the rise and fall of jihadism, somehow this relationship seems destined to remain the same. why? And is there any chance that will change?

The answer is complex, but its main elements will be familiar to many. In 1953, the United States and Britain conspired to support the overthrow of Iran’s democratically elected prime minister and elevate the Shah, the son of Iran’s former powerful ruler. In 1979, the Islamic Revolution overthrew the Shah and he fled. The United States recognized the Shah’s cancer treatment, angering many of his critics in Iran. Americans at the US Embassy in Tehran were taken prisoner. In 1980, President Jimmy Carter ordered an operation to rescue them, but it was unsuccessful. The United States would then assist Iraq with critical intelligence in its long and violent war with Iran. Mutual hostility between Washington and Tehran will remain strong.

There are two mindsets that often underpin American strategy that need to be dispelled. The first is that the Iranian regime collapses and suddenly becomes a pro-American ally, as it did under the Shah. This is not impossible. Repressive regimes are often more fragile than they appear. However, a strategy based on hope is not a healthy way forward.

Moreover, it is worth looking at America’s recent experience with regime changes in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya to realize that even after a bad regime ends, the situation does not necessarily improve steadily. In fact, look at the relationship between Washington and Moscow more than 30 years after the collapse of the Soviet system. It didn’t work out the way many had hoped.

The second idea, or hope, is that the current governments of the United States and Iran can be friends. The truth is that Iran is a very proud and nationalistic country, with a deeply ingrained sense of its own historical greatness. Recall that the Empire, the predecessor of modern Iran, was one of the few powers that held its own in the fight against the Roman Empire. The ancient Persians ruled much of what is now the Arab world at various times. Despite all its current dysfunction and poverty, Iran is the inheritor of the world’s great civilizations, and that means pride and nastiness.

Furthermore, the Islamic Revolution is anti-American in its DNA. The Ayatollahs who run Iran have constructed an ideology that permeates the regime, one that is as much about the importance of religion as it is about resisting the United States. They justify their oppression by declaring that the West’s free and decadent ways must be resisted.

Of course, there are some strong ideas and feelings that underpin America’s hostility toward Iran. The US government views the fall of the Shah’s Iran as a deep betrayal from which Iran will never recover. I have always found it difficult to deal with nationalism, anti-modern and reactionary ideologies.

However, if we exclude regime change and friendly relations, is it possible to have a cooperative relationship with Tehran? It does not presuppose victory, conversion, or a happy marriage, but rather an uneasy coexistence. This proposition has been tried briefly, but never consistently. President Ronald Reagan took tentative steps in that direction, such as exchanging hostages and weapons, but it exploded. After 9/11, Iran took several important steps to cooperate with the United States in Afghanistan and help form a new government. But that idea fell apart when President George W. Bush labeled them part of an “axis of evil.”

The most important efforts were made by US President Barack Obama and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, both of whom spoke of building new ties. It wasn’t friendship. As Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif pointed out to me, the Iran nuclear deal is premised on distrust, not trust. Both sides carefully protected their interests in the document. But it opened up the possibility of cooperation, and Iran complied with the deal and stayed away from its nuclear weapons program for decades. President Donald Trump ruined this agreement and that opportunity. And in Iran, forces opposed to the deal or any kind of rapprochement with Washington have grown in strength, sidelined President Rouhani and now rule with an even more brutal fist.

Can Washington and Tehran find common cause again? That’s unlikely. That turning point is far behind us. The path both countries are on is a comfortable one for both countries, even though it is full of tensions, misunderstandings, and even the possibility of war.