Few countries have had a 20th and 21st century as turbulent as Iran's. Heir to the ancient Persian civilisation, modern Iran has been shaped by oil, foreign intervention, a stolen democracy, a stunning Islamic revolution, a horrific war, and a tense, decades-long standoff with the West. This course traces that modern story — from the fall of a democratic government to the Islamic Republic of today. (Our course on ancient Persia covers the empires of antiquity; this one picks up the modern nation.)You'll begin with the 1953 coup, in which the US and Britain overthrew Iran's elected prime minister to control its oil — a wound that still shapes Iran's view of the West. You'll witness the 1979 Islamic Revolution that toppled the Shah and created the Islamic Republic, then the devastating Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s. Finally you'll see how Iran and the United States became arch-enemies, a rivalry that defines the modern Middle East. Honest note: this is a heavy and contested history. The 1953 coup was a covert foreign operation against a democratically-elected government; the Iran-Iraq War killed perhaps a million people; and the Islamic Republic has faced repeated waves of protest and harsh repression, most recently the 2022 demonstrations. These are popular-history videos presenting an introductory, multi-sided sketch.
In 1953, Iran is at a crossroads. After decades of interference by foreign powers eager to exploit its oil reserves, the government decides it will throw them out and take control of the country’s wealth. But with the super powers’ Cold War paranoia and thirst for oil, it won’t be easy – especially once the CIA gets involved. By the early 1950s, Iran has experienced decades of upheaval. In 1921 Reza Shah Pahlavi comes to power in a British-supported coup, and begins a program of modernizing and westernizing the country on the Turkish model, while at the same time resisting British and Soviet influence. He also renews agreements with the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company that give the British state-controlled firm preferential access to Iran’s oil for extraction and sale . The Second World War brings dramatic changes: in 1941, British and Soviet troops invade neutral Iran to get control over its oil, prevent German influence, and open a route for military aid to the USSR. They exile Reza Shah and replace him with his son Mohammad-Reza Pahlavi, who takes on the royal title of Shah. The Soviets also try to muscle their way into Iranian oil in 1944, but fail. Iran’s new ruler faces a host of problems during and after the war. He’s unpopular, not least because he represses nomadic tribes, confiscates privately owned land for himself, and fails to meet citizens’ expectations of a better quality of life. Many Iranians are unhappy with foreign occupation and poverty, and even after the British and Soviet troops leave in 1946, that its oil reserves are controlled by foreign oil companies who don’t share revenue fairly. Many of the Shah’s critics want to use oil revenue to restore Iran’s full sovereignty and modernize the country, and the question of who will control Iranian oil sets the stage for a major crisis in the early 1950s. Some parties support the Shah’s position, who wants stability and to continue to benefit from the oil deal with the British. The large Communist Tudeh party wants the Soviet Union to have some control. The Islamist terrorist movement Fadaiyan-e Islam opposes foreign control, wants a theocracy, and assassinates several high-ranking politicians. But the most important political force is Mohamad Mossadegh’s National Front, a broad coalition of leftists, centrists, nationalists, and even conservative clergymen like the influential Ayatollah Kashani. This mixed group is held together by opposition to British influence, the wish to empower parliament at the expense of the Shah, and the desire to bring the oil industry under Iranian state control by nationalizing it. In 1951, the parliament elects Mossadegh prime minister with a large majority. He is a wealthy landowner and monarchist, but introduces sweeping reforms, including more rights for workers, social security, and a tax on landowners . Mossadegh’s priority though, is getting the British out and nationalizing oil. He demands a better profit-sharing deal and expels some British oil company personnel, but Anglo-Iranian interrupts production. Mossadegh, with the approval of parliament, announces the nationalization of the company in April 1951: “Long years of negotiations with foreign countries have served no purpose. The Iranian state prefers to control its own oil production. Thanks to the nationalization of the British company, we can combat corruption in our country. Our oil profits will enable us to review our entire budget to fight poverty, sickness and underdevelopment. Another important point, we will now be able to preserve our international interest from foreign influence. The British company has nothing more to do in our country, save to return its assets to their true owners.” (Shirali 60-61) Iran’s oil is now under its control, but Mossadegh has made many enemies. The Shah’s supporters, landowners, and religious conservatives feel he is too radical. Tudeh is upset the USSR has not been involved and has the support of many intellectuals and some army officers. The Islamic extremists even try to assassinate Mossadegh, since he won’t introduce sharia law. The economy also suffers, since there are not enough trained Iranians to run the oil wells. Oil production falls from 241 million barrels in 1951 to just 10 million in 1952, with a corresponding and catastrophic drop in state revenue. The British are furious, as they view their oil interests in Iran as a question of state security. London complains to the UN Security Council and the International Court of the Hague, but neither feel the problem is within their jurisdiction. They sanction oil sales, their forces carry out military exercises in the region, and Opposition Leader Winston Churchill even suggests a coup. London does pressure the Shah to get rid of Mossadegh and appoint a more compliant prime minister, and British MI6 agents secretly support anti-government protests – although the Foreign Office sees a danger in half-measures: “Until we [the British] made it perfectly plain that we see no possibility of reaching an agreement with Dr. Mossadegh, the growing opposition [to] him will be unwilling to commit themselves to the point of bringing about his overthrow” (Azimi) Meanwhile, the United States worries that conflict between Britain and Iran might play into the hands of their Cold War rivals, the Soviets - when in reality Moscow has a poor opinion of Mossadegh at this time. In fact the CIA has been quietly trying to limit the Tudeh Party’s growth for several years. So President Truman sends diplomat Averell Harriman to Iran over British objections. Many Iranians, including Mossadegh, see the US as fairer partner than the British, especially because the US has no major economic interests in the country. Harriman does convince the British to re-start talks, but these fail and he blames Mossadegh for being unwilling to compromise. Still, Truman and Secretary of State Dean Acheson are skeptical of British motives, and veto a British plan to occupy the port of Abadan. The Shah, meanwhile, fears Mossadegh’s reforms and the danger of conflict with Britain – he even fears for the monarchy’s very existence: “The worst years of my reign, indeed of my entire life, came when Mossadegh was Prime Minister....Every morning I awoke with the sensation that today might be my last one on the throne.” (Zahrani 94) [MOHAMMAD REZA PAHLAVI] When Mossadegh resigns suddenly in July 1952 after an argument over who should control the military, the Shah appoints Ahmad Qavam in his place. Mossadegh is still popular among the people and now even some of his political rivals are outraged: “Qavam must know that the people will not submit to his colonialist policy. It is not by terrorizing people that he will manage to govern. If need be, I shall call Iranians to a holy war (the jihad) against all foreigners and their mercenaries who want to steal our country’s assets and endanger its independence.” (Shirali 62/63) Most parties support a 5-day uprising following Mossadegh’s dismissal. Dozens are killed in the violence, but the revolt forces the Shah to re-appoint Mossadegh as Prime Minister. Tensions have only increased, and Britain now turns to the US for help since Iran has broken off diplomatic relations. President Eisenhower’s election in late 1952 changes US policy in the Middle East, as his administration adopts a more active “New Look” foreign policy. President Truman had earlier supported Mossadegh, and didn’t want to provoke Soviet intervention by getting involved. Now though, the intensity of the Cold War, including the recent Chinese Communist victory in their civil war and the ongoing conflict in Korea, heightens US fears about communism in Iran. There is some debate about whether US oil interests play a role in the decision to launch the coup, but it’s more likely the worries about Communist spread are the main motivator. Eisenhower will later share his view: “Iran’s downhill course toward Communist-supported dictatorship was picking up momentum. For the Shah, the time had come to check that course[.]” (Balaghi 73) Iranian anti-communist political figures and some in Washington now suspect Mossadegh of authoritarian and communist sympathies. This is how they interpret events when Mossadegh interrupts the 1952 elections before all parliamentary seats are filled, requests emergency powers from parliament, pushes for more centralized power, removes unfriendly army officers, and works with Tudeh in parliament . Several National Front allies, including Ayatollah Kashani, break with Mossadegh in protest, and it’s possible MI6 and CIA agents have contributed to some of this internal discord as well. Meanwhile the British still want to recover their stake in the oil industry, and approach the Americans with a plan for a coup in Iran. In November and December 1952, CIA ad MI6 agents hold secret talks. British agent “Monty” Woodhouse chooses his words carefully: “Not wishing to be accused of trying to use the Americans to pull British chestnuts out of the fire, I decided to emphasize the Communist threat to Iran rather than the need to recover control of the oil industry. I argued that even if a settlement of the oil dispute could be negotiated with [Mossadegh], which was doubtful, he was still incapable of resisting a coup by the Tudeh Party, if it were backed by Soviet support. Therefore he must be removed” (Balaghi 86) The US agrees to the plan despite the objections of some CIA officers, and Operation Ajax is born: the CIA, MI6, the Shah (once he is informed), and some anti-Mossadegh Iranians will work together to remove Mossadegh from power. Among these are paid agitators and informants, including journalists, officers, and intellectuals, but some sources claim former Mossadegh ally Ayatollah Kashani is also involved. Retired General Fazlollah Zahedi is to be the new prime minister, and the CIA sets aside 1 million dollars for the plan, about 12 million dollars today . The main organizer is CIA agent Kermit Roosevelt. In early 1953, anti-National Front propaganda appears in Iran, including several new newspapers – and several major anti-Mossadegh riots take place, especially after he dissolves parliament via a rigged referendum. Agents also target members of parliament and army officers to turn them against the Prime Minister. In August, Operation Ajax goes into action – an episode whose events and interpretations are still controversial. The Shah is hesitant to move against the popular Mossadegh openly and distrusts the British – he only agrees after reassurances from Roosevelt. On August 15, 1953 Mohammad-Reza Pahlavi dismisses Mossadegh with a CIA-drafted decree and has several ministers arrested. But the Shah’s decree is illegal as parliament has not approved it, and Mossadegh is tipped off, possibly by Tudeh. Police loyal to the Prime Minster arrest the officer of the Shah Imperial Guard who serves him with the decree . Army units are also on the move, some to arrest Mossadegh, and others to protect him . General Hussein Fardust recalls: “Zahedi ordered to execute the plan of coup, but surprisingly, none of the military formations moved from their locations. The Minister of Defense, General Riahi, was being informed of the incident and the military units loyal to Mossadegh disarmed and arrested the three military units of the coup, without a clash.” (Fardust 177) In the aftermath, chaos reigns. Forces loyal to Mossadegh search Tehran for Zahedi, who goes into hiding at a CIA safe house. Angry crowds tear down statues of the Shah, though it’s still debated which political or foreign forces are behind them, and the Shah flees the country, much to the surprise of the Americans and British. Government forces arrest suspected plotters in the military, and there are even reports Mossadegh orders gallows erected on Sepah Square. Large Tudeh protests add to the confusion, especially since they are likely started by Iranian CIA agents as a false flag to discredit Tudeh before actual Tudeh supporters unknowingly join. Washington believes Operation Ajax has failed, but Roosevelt, Zahedi and their allies try again. Roosevelt arranges for journalists to interview Zahedi, and the clergy begins a new propaganda effort. US Defense Department official Wilbur Eveland recalls what happens next: “On August 19 loyalist mobs were collected in southern Tehran and were led into the modern quarters, where they swept along soldiers and officers. General Zahedi emerged from hiding to climb into a tank and be taken to the radio station, where he proclaimed the new government.” (Balaghi 91) The crowds are the subject of many allegations – that they are paid by the CIA, organized by Kashani, or egged on by criminal elements. Some police and military units join, and pro-Zahedi forces with 32 Sherman tanks besieges key points in the city . About 300 people are killed, Zahedi’s troops arrest Mossadegh after heavy fighting at his home, and the General proclaims himself prime minister . The Shah returns, and his courts sentence Mossadegh to house arrest in his home village. According to Roosevelt’s later memoir, the monarch credits the CIA agent personally: “I owe my throne to God, to my people, my army—and to you!” (Balaghi 84) There is though, some discussion about who is really responsible for the coup’s success. Most historians, and the CIA and MI6 agents who later write memoirs, attribute the coup’s success to the CIA and MI6. President Eisenhower believes Roosevelt’s version, as he confides to his diary: “Another recent development that we helped bring about was the restoration of the Shah to power in Iran and the elimination of Mossadegh. The things we did were ‘covert.’ If knowledge of them became public, we would not only be embarrassed in that region, but our chances to do anything of like nature in the future would almost totally disappear. […] I listened to [Roosevelt’s] detailed report and it seemed more like a dime novel than an historical fact. […] we can understand exactly how courageous our agent was in staying right on the job and continuing to work until he reversed the entire situation.” (Eisenhower) But some point to US State Department documents that order a halt to the coup after its initial failure, which would place more responsibility on local actors like General Zahedi and the clergy for its success. Woodhouse even claims the CIA simply exaggerates its role to get a budget increase from congress. In any case, Iran was now a US-friendly power. The Shah’s government supports US interests, and opposes Soviet ones most of the time – and the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, soon renamed British Petroleum, resumes the extraction and sale of Iranian oil – now joined by US companies . The success of Operation Ajax helps encourage the US to sponsor other Cold War coup attempts in years to come – including in Guatemala, Egypt, Indonesia, and Cuba. In Iran, the Shah and Zahedi crack down on internal enemies – the government declares opposition parties illegal, hunt down Islamic groups, sidelines Kashani, and represses Tudeh and the remainder of the National Front . Another step in authoritarian rule is the creation of the Shah’s secret police, the SAVAK, who will soon strike fear into most Iranians. US intervention based on Cold War fears of Communism creates a powder keg in Iran. It will take more than 50 years for future President Barack Obama to admit the US role in the 1953 coup, and by then, Iran will have faced even more dramatic upheavals. 1953 was not just a pivotal year for Iran, but in world history. The death of Stalin marked a turning point in the Soviet Union which wrestled with his legacy under Nikita Khrushchev. One of the lasting impacts of Stalin was the nuclear program that matured in the last years of his rule. From the tests of Soviet nuclear weapons to the dream of “atomic powered communism”. If you want to know more about this topic, check out our documentary series Red Atoms which chronicles the Soviet nuclear program from its origins in World War 2 to the Chernobyl disaster and beyond. And where can you watch Red Atoms ad-free and in 4K resolution? On Nebula, a streaming service we’re building together with other creators and where we don’t have to worry about the almighty algorithm or advertising guidelines. On Nebula you can watch all our regular videos ad-free and earlier than on YouTube plus exclusive series like Red Atoms or our World War 2 series 16 Days in Berlin and Rhineland 45. If you head over to nebula.tv/realtimehistory you can get an entire year of Nebula for just $36 for an entire year. Nebula is not just available in your browser, but also on smartphones, Apple TV, Roku and more. And for those of you that want to share everything Nebula has to offer with your family and friends, Nebula is now offering Annual Gift Cards. Use the link gift.nebula.tv/realtimehistory to give a year of Nebula to a friend. Whether you enjoy Nebula yourself or gift it to someone, you are directly supporting our work here at Real Time History. We want to thank Philipp Trzaska for his help with this episode. For more Middle Eastern history, check out our video on the Gulf War. If you are watching this video on Patreon or Nebula, thank you so much for the support, we couldn’t do it without you. My name is Jesse Alexander and this is a production of Real Time History, the only history channel that refuses to pull British chestnuts out of the fire. Kheili mamnoun, khodahafez.
(soft dramatic music) - One of the most important wars of the last 50 years is one that we don't hear about much. When in 1980, two of the Middle East's most powerful countries, Iran and Iraq, waged eight years of some of the worst trench and chemical warfare since World War I, leaving both countries devastated. This is the war that fractured the Middle East into lines that still play out in nearly every conflict there today. It set the US and Iraq on a path that ultimately led to the American invasion. And it defined Iran's often hostile relationship with the wider world. This is the Iran-Iraq War. It's 1979, and Iran is in the middle of a revolution. (crowd chanting) The country is coming off of decades of being ruled by The Shah, a king that the US and UK had installed in the 50s after covertly overthrowing Iran's democratically-elected leader. But after years of The Shah's corrupt autocratic rule, a mass uprising violently overthrows him, creating what becomes an Islamic republic, headed by an ayatollah named Ruhollah Khomeini. (soft dramatic music) Khomeini, and a group of Shia religious scholars, want to impose fundamentalist rule on the country and are hostile to both the Western powers and the neighboring Soviet Union. They establish a military force called the Islamic Revolutionary Guard, which is meant to protect their hold on the revolution and to suppress the other groups who helped overthrow The Shah. The US is watching all of this in shock. Their biggest ally in the region, and a major oil producer, has just turned from friend to fierce enemy. But the biggest tremors of this revolution are felt in the rest of the Middle East. (soft dramatic music) Iran sends out radio broadcasts to Arab countries like Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Kuwait, and Iraq, calling for people to rise up and overthrow their own rulers. They're trying to export their revolution to their neighbors to gain new allies in the region. Neighboring leaders, most of them Sunni Muslim, don't like this. Saudi Arabia's king fears being overthrown just like The Shah was. And in Iraq, Saddam Hussein sees this Shia religious revolution on his eastern border and worries that the Shia majority that he rules over will rise up against him too. But he also sees this as an opportunity. Iran and Iraq have been fighting over this border territory for years. This waterway is a critical access point to the Persian Gulf where both countries export their oil to the rest of the world. In a treaty between the two back in 1975, Saddam had to give up full control of this waterway, as well as access to oil-rich regions in what was now Iran. Saddam hates this treaty and is considering taking the waterway back by force. The Iranian revolution has left the country weak and fractured. Khomeini and his revolutionary guard are still fighting other political factions for control. The Iranian military, which used to be funded and trained by the United States, is now weak, its leaders having been jailed or executed after the revolution. Iran's military would normally be able to crush Iraq in an invasion, but maybe not anymore. Saddam sees this as an opportunity to weaken a major rival. (soft dramatic music) Saddam is also riding on a delusion that he himself is going to unify the Arab world under his leadership. If he invades Iran, maybe the rest of the Middle East will rally behind him against this new common enemy. He thinks it'll be a quick victory. So in September of 1980, he decides to prepare 10,000 Iraqi troops to cross the border to invade Iran. (soft dramatic music) (engine rumbling) What's about to happen here isn't just the start of a new war. Saddam is kicking off a dynamic that will dominate the Middle East for more than 40 years, the fight between revolutionary change and status quo power. (soft dramatic music) The war officially starts when Saddam sends his air force over the border in a surprise attack on Iranian air bases. (soft dramatic music) His 10,000 soldiers cross from Basra into Southern Iran. Further north, Saddam opens a second front to seize strategically-located border towns and put pressure on his enemy. These air attacks mostly fail, and Iran responds with airstrikes of their own into Iraqi territory hitting oil facilities. Iran still has sophisticated jets that the United States had given the previous regime. This gives them an edge in the air. (bombs exploding) The war quickly sucks in the rest of the region. Israel is among the first. It wants to keep these two adversaries occupied, fighting with each other, keeping both sides weak. So almost immediately, Israel secretly sells supplies and parts to Iran. This helps the Iranian air force keep planes in the air. Now, Iran and Israel are not friends, but Israel sees Iraq as a greater threat here. So they're willing to support. Iran needs to get its military organized if they're gonna fight this war. So they release military officers that they had jailed during the revolution. War tends to unify a nation, and in this case, the fractured country of Iran is unifying around Iraq's invasion, creating this irony that Saddam is the one who actually cements Khomeini's hold on power. Saudi Arabia and Kuwait also step in here, giving billions of dollars to fund Iraq's war efforts. They want to weaken Iran and turn back its revolution. The Middle East is now dividing between, on one side, Arab states who are ruled by aging, Sunni monarchies and strong men who fear change, and on the other side, a Shia Iran bent on revolution, on remaking the region in its image. China is also watching this war. They say they will maintain strict neutrality, but they take the opportunity to sell weapons to both sides of the conflict. They eventually become Iran's top supplier of weapons. (gentle music) For most of 1981, the two armies are in a stalemate, with Iraq holding small but important stretches of border territory. The global powers see this stalemate and try to negotiate a ceasefire, hoping that this conflict that threatens so much of the global oil supply will end soon. What they don't know is that this is really just the beginning. Saddam agrees to the ceasefire, but Khomeini does not. This war has become so useful to his goals, unifying the country and keeping the military occupied so that it doesn't become a rival to his power. Khomeini needs the war to continue. So Iran demands that Saddam Hussein step down. They say the war will continue until his rule is ended. Saddam, of course, refuses. So Iran goes on the offensive. Their forces are now organized. Their officers have been freed from jail, and they're able to recapture the territory that Saddam had taken, even pushing into Iraq. Saddam's hopes of a quick victory and a gain of some valuable territory are now dead. So he turns to the United States for support and the US agrees to help. They hope to weaken Iran and its call for anti-American Islamic revolution across the region. So the US starts giving Saddam intelligence and satellite imagery on Iranian troop movement. (soft dramatic music) Iraq also gets another big backer, the Soviet Union. The Soviets are at war in neighboring Afghanistan trying to suppress another religious uprising, but they also have allies in this region. So over the course of the war, the Soviets become a top supplier of weapons to Iraq. Now remember the situation between these two. It's a tense moment in the Cold War, and the United States and Soviet Union are suddenly supporting the same side of this Middle East conflict, both backing the country that will support the status quo, nothing changing, allowing their great power struggle to continue as it has. But by the summer of 1982, Iran is now pushing into Iraqi territory, much of their campaign focused on the city of Basra. If Iran can take Basra, it will cut off Iraq from the Persian Gulf, preventing them from shipping out their oil. Iraqi forces are outnumbered here, so they start to dig in and build trenches, erecting barbed wire barriers, planting landmines and surrounding the city to stop Iran from taking it. The fighting starts to resemble the brutal warfare of World War I, waves of artillery strikes, and the Iranian military resorting to human wave attacks where thousands of boys and men charge over open fields leading to huge numbers of casualties. Iran is not successful in taking the city, but this attack does weaken Saddam, showing that he's vulnerable. And this is where we need to look to the north to talk about the Kurds. (soft dramatic music) The Kurds are a minority group in the north of Iraq. They've been long suppressed by Saddam Hussein, and they see this moment as an opportunity to break away from Iraq to make their own country. So Kurdish forces start fighting with the Iraqi army, taking towns and villages. So now Saddam is fighting two different armies, one of which lives in his own country. Iran starts sending support to the Kurds who have a presence in this mountainous, oil-rich part of Iraq. If the Kurds can hold it and keep Saddam's regime away from all of this oil, it would have a major effect on this war. This is a big deal for Saddam, and he switches tactics to make sure he can control this northern area. He escalates by using chemical weapons against the Kurds as well as the Iranians. Shells filled with mustard gas, weapons that cause extreme burning and blindness, a weapon that is illegal under international law, but even still the global powers who are supporting him mostly look the other way. The US starts sending technology and money to Saddam, even restoring official diplomatic ties with Iraq. This allows Iraq to buy technology from the United States that helps them develop their weapons programs, including the horrific chemical and biological weapons that he will soon be using on the battlefield. They need him to keep fighting because this war has changed. It went from protecting Saddam from revolution to now using Saddam to weaken Iran. So they keep supporting him, showing him that he can use chemical weapons without being punished. The chemical attacks help push back Iranian forces, and the war reaches a new stalemate. (soft dramatic music) 1984 is the year that the oil war begins in this conflict. Iraq starts attacking Iranian oil tankers in the Persian Gulf using new jets provided by France, a new entrant to this conflict. Saddam warns that he'll also attack any ship going into Iranian ports. Iran retaliates by attacking oil tankers carrying Iraq's oil. The oil that the entire globe relies on is now at the center of this increasingly brutal conflict. Hundreds of commercial ships are attacked by both sides, resulting in the death of over 400 civilian sailors. The US has to send in two frigates and a guided missile destroyer into the Persian Gulf to escort US ships, hoping that their presence will stop these attacks. (soft dramatic music) Meanwhile, Iran is making progress on the ground, slowly taking territory from Iraq and continuing attacks on the vital port city of Basra. It's 1985 and Saddam is about to escalate to a new extreme. (soft dramatic music) He starts shooting missiles and dropping bombs on Iranian cities all over the country, including the capitol. This kills 16,000 people and leaves many homeless. Iran responds, striking Iraqi cities, firing these massive missiles, primarily at the capital of Baghdad. These strikes hit civilian targets like a school and a bus station with hundreds of casualties. Civilians on both sides are now caught in the crossfire of this brutally escalating war. Their cities and their homes are not safe, so many flee. These events leave an entire generation scarred by the trauma of war and a disdain for the outside powers that have ripped their country apart. And speaking of outside powers, this is when the US starts double dealing. They start selling missiles to Iran, which gives Iran an edge against Iraqi forces who the US is also supporting. Behind all this is President Ronald Reagan, who wants to use the money from this deal to fund an anti-communist militia group in Nicaragua. It's all supposed to be a secret, but will eventually come out and be known as the Iran-Contra scandal. Meanwhile, Kuwait is asking the US to be more aggressive to protect their oil tankers. Iranian attacks on their ships have started to take a toll. The US is getting more involved in the war. Their presence in the Persian Gulf is growing. They start putting American flags on Kuwaiti tankers to deter Iran from attacking them. And then in March of 1988, Iran partners with the Kurdish fighters to take over the Iraqi town of Halabja. The Kurds know that this is going to set Saddam off, and they brace themselves for a brutal retaliation. But what comes next is worse than anyone could have prepared for. The Iraqi army drops bombs in artillery shells containing deadly chemicals, blanketing the entire town with a cloud of deadly gas that sinks into homes and buildings and the underground shelters where many were hiding for protection. It's a brutal attack that kills over 5,000 Iraqi Kurds, mostly unarmed civilians. And it was a part of a broader campaign that Saddam was now waging to wipe out the Kurdish people entirely. He now had what he believed was a justification. So the Iraqi army starts going village to village, dropping chemical weapons on civilians and executing any survivors. This resulted in an estimated 50 to 100,000 deaths in what has now been deemed as a genocide, one of the many war crimes committed by Saddam Hussein. The US knows this is happening, and yet according to now-public documents, the official government line was to turn a blind eye, to blame everything on Iran. Saddam's horrific war crimes project a new fear onto the civilians in Iran who now worry that a missile loaded with deadly gas could land on their cities. Many flee to take shelter in the mountains. And by now, after eight years of devastating war, Iran's economy and social order is frayed. Their leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, is feeling the pressure to end this war. More than a million lives have been lost in this war. All sides are looking for a way out. And the UN Security Council is pressuring the parties to accept a ceasefire. Then in July of 1988, a US ship in the Persian Gulf shoots down an Iranian passenger jet, (soft dramatic music) killing all 290 civilians on board. The US shakes it off as an unfortunate accident, saying that they mistook the airliner for a hostile F-16 fighter jet. They pay compensation to the victim's families, and President Reagan sends a letter apologizing, but the government never formally apologizes. And the captain of the ship who did this later received a medal which fed a deep suspicion in Iran that this attack was deliberate, that it was a scheme to coerce them into accepting peace. Fear of more American attacks, along with a new offensive by Iraq, pushes the Iranian forces to withdraw from the country, and both sides finally accept a ceasefire. (gentle music) The war is finally over, and after all of this, the borders were unchanged from before the fighting. But in some ways, this was really just the first round in a larger conflict that has continued through to today, a war for the future of the Middle East, one that the United States is deeply involved in but that most expresses itself as a cold war between Saudi Arabia and Iran, who now fuel civil wars around the region in Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen, backing their own proxy fighters and making these conflicts worse. But another major takeaway here is that this war defined Iran's relationship to the rest of the world, especially the United States. Iranian hardliners came to feel confirmed in their belief that they could never trust an outside world bent on Iran's destruction and seemingly unconstrained in their violence, leading some leaders to conclude that only nuclear weapons could stave off disaster from the outside. Saddam Hussein's Iraq emerged battered by this war, humiliated by this failure against Iran. He faced growing internal resistance from his people, which he suppressed with more and more violence. He also came out of this with huge war debts to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Angry that his allies had billed him to fight a war on their behalf, a few years later, Saddam invades Kuwait seeking its oil, taking the spoils that he felt he was owed. And this is when his one-time backer, the United States, quickly turns against him, expelling him from Kuwait and beating him back in a swift 43-day victory, cutting him off from the world economy and turning him into a pariah, an enemy. A decade after Saddam had gassed his own people, the US finally blamed him for it, turning it into a byword for his cruelty and the centerpiece for their demand that he stepped down. A few years later, George W. Bush would cite these weapons of mass destructions, the ones that he would never find, as a reason to invade the country to topple Saddam. Bush's war room was filled with the same officials who had covered for Saddam and his war crimes in the first place, and making it so crystal clear that, even though this war between Iran and Iraq ended decades ago, the Middle East we see today is built off of what happened during those eight brutal years.
The United States and Iran have one of the world's most complicated and controversial relationships. The United States is the world's most preeminent superpower with a population of more than 320 million, while Iran is a major power in her own right with a population of more than 80 million. These countries represent 4% and 1% of the living human population. And for the past 41 years, they've had absolutely zero diplomatic relations and have come close to the brink of total war on more than one occasion. At the beginning of 2020, war between the two sides seemed almost inevitable. The United States assassinated an Iranian major general in a drone strike, and Iran retaliated by initiating artillery strikes against American military bases across Iraq. had a war broken out from there, it had the potential to become the biggest conflict in human history since the Second World War. This time, that fate was thankfully avoided. But in order to understand how it got so close and why it could still happen during another crisis in the future, you've got to understand the entire history of the conflict between America and Iran so far. And that story begins back before the start of World War II. At the beginning of the 20th century, oil was first discovered within the deserts of Iran by the British. As more and more of these discoveries were made, it was revealed that Iran, in fact, contained the fourth largest proven reserves of oil anywhere on the planet, and that the country was an undiscovered and unrealized energy superpower. The only problem for the British, of course, was that these discoveries were located within Iran, and Iran wasn't within Britain's vast colonial empire that already spanned a quarter of the globe. Not too worried about that pesky little detail, Britain negotiated a deal with Iran to share in the massive profits that were bound to come from the extraction of all this oil. They created the jointlyowned Anglo Iranian oil company, but it wasn't exactly set up very fairly. Iran, the country where all of this oil was actually located, was only entitled to 16% of the company's profits, whereas the other 84% of profits were going directly to the British. By the start of the Second World War, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company grew to control all of Iran's oil and had grown to become the largest company in the entire British Empire. But this massively valuable asset was coming under threats. Discontent at the company's unfair terms was growing within Iran itself. While at the same time in 1941, Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union and opened up the largest military front line ever seen in human history. Iran stood geographically at the Soviet Union's southern flank, and their intentions were considered suspect by both the British and the Soviets. Despite having declared neutrality at the onset of the war, Iran's ruling sha or emperor was widely considered by the allies to be too friendly towards the Nazis. If Iran were to have cooperated with the Axis, it could have opened up another southern front for the Soviets to deal with that would have diverted vital troops away from the critical Eastern front. It could have jeopardized the Soviet Union's own oil fields in the Caucases right on Iran's doorstep. And it would have potentially placed Britain's largest oil company in the hands of the Nazis. So in order to prevent any of that from happening and in order to ensure that Iran could be used as a transportation corridor to get vital supplies into the Soviet Union, neutral Iran was invaded by both the Soviets and the British. Vastly outnumbered and far behind in technology, Iran never stood a chance and surrendered within just a week. The old troublesome Sha was overthrown and replaced by the invaders with his much younger 21-year-old son, Muhammad Raza Palavi, whom the Allies felt would be far less capable of acting against their interests. Iran was effectively occupied for the entire Second World War by the Allies, which eventually saw the deployment of more than 30,000 Americans and the transportation of nearly 1/3 of all the supplies that America sent to the Soviet Union. After the war ended, the Allies left and ended their occupation. But the unfair terms that the British had established in regards to Iran's oil came back into question. By the early 1950s, Britain was still taking home the majority of Iran's oil profits. While the conditions for Iranian oil workers and their families remained terrible, at the same time, the British were also withholding all of the company's financial records from the Iranians and had refused all of their requests that being audited. The support for nationalizing the company within Iran was getting overwhelmingly massive. And by 1951, Iran's democratically elected Prime Minister Muhammad Mozedc with unanimous approval from the Iranian Parliament finally did so. Brennan responded to this by immediately embargoing all Iranian oil. And then 2 years later in 1953, Brennan's MI6 and America's CIA organized a military coup within the country to overthrow Mosedc's government. As many as 300 Iranians were killed during the coup. Mosedc himself was placed under house arrest for the rest of his life, while the Shaw was elevated to being essentially an authoritarian dictator within the country, having had his position installed and guaranteed by Western powers twice. Now, the Shaw became widely viewed in Iran as little more than a Western puppet. And as the Cold War developed out of the ashes of the Second World War, Iran's strategic location at the Soviet Union's southern flank, her vast strategic reserves of oil and her authoritarian leader who owed his position and loyalty to the West made Iran a natural and valuable ally of the United States for the very first time. The Shaw pursued a staunchly pro-American and pro-Israel foreign policy. And for decades, Iran became one of America's most important cold war era allies. But over the decades, the Shaw's policies and cozy relations with the West alienated much of his homebased support. He ran a vast network of secret police within the country who arrested thousands of political opponents and many more like Ayatah were exiled. Widespread torture of political dissident in prison was reported. He outlawed the Iranian Communist Party. He continued friendly relations with both America and Israel despite nearly none of the rest of the Islamic world even recognizing Israel while he carried out a domestic policy of modernization, secularism, and the infranchisement of women. All of these policies combined alienated Iran's leftists, the working class, and the hardcore Shiite Muslim conservatives and clergy. And by the late 1970s, Iran's long-standing political unrest had transformed into fullscale revolution. A movie theater was set on fire in Abadan that killed at least 420 people with the Shaw's regime blaming Marxist and Islamist insurgents while many of the protesters felt like it was more likely the Shaw's own secret police. The following month, protesters gathered in the capital, Tehran's main square, and the Shaw's army opened fire on them indiscriminately, killing and wounding hundreds more. More than 5 million Iranians took to the streets demanding the Shaw's abdication. And after defections from his army became rampant, Muhammad Palavi realized that his position was impossible to maintain and he fled the country in exile in early 1979. The new radical Shiite Islamist government that replaced the Shaw's regime immediately abolished the monarchy and invited Ayatollah Kam back to the country after 15 years of exile to become Iran's new supreme leader. and the modern Islamic Republic of Iran was born. And this new Iranian regime was radically different from the one that had it preceded. It was a totalitarian Shiite theocracy that was staunchly opposed to the United States and Israel, and mass executions and purges of political opponents and members of the former regime were almost immediately carried out. To the United States and the rest of the world, Iran's Islamic revolution came as an enormous shock. Almost overnight, Iran had flipped from being one of America's most important Middle Eastern allies to her greatest Middle Eastern enemy. After the Sha was overthrown, the United States welcomed him into their country for a cancer treatment operation. And the Near Iran demanded that he be extradited back to stand trial for the crimes that he had committed throughout his reign against the Iranian people. Knowing that his return would mean a certain execution, the United States rejected all of Iran's demands. But that did little to dissuade Iran's revolutionary paranoia since the Sha was actively inside America. And since Western powers had already initiated two previous coups in the past to install him over the will of the Iranian people, the paranoia was widespread that America and the CIA could be plotting yet another third coup attempt from within their embassy inside Thran. And so in November of 1979, thousands of Iranian revolutionaries and students stormed the American embassy and took 52 American diplomats and civilians as hostages. America eventually sent the Shawway to Egypt while the Carter administration worked for months to secure the hostages release. But when diplomacy went nowhere, Carter authorized a raid by the United States Army Rangers in April of 1980 to attempt a rescue operation. But the raid turned into a disaster. co-enamed Operation Eagle Claw, a helicopter crashed into a transport plane before any contact with the Iranians was even made and eight American soldiers lost their lives. Carter ordered the mission to be abandoned and the hostages remained under Iranian control. It was at this point that the United States decided to sever all diplomatic relations with Iran's new regime, and they have been frozen ever since. But a few months later, something else incredible and unexpected happened. In September of 1980, Saddam Hussein's Iraq launched an allout invasion of conquest into Iran. For years preceding this, Saddam had wanted Iraq to overtake and supplant Iran as the dominant power in the oil richch Persian Gulf. But they were never capable of doing anything about it because Iran had a colossally larger military and they had the support of America and Israel, all of which made her vastly more powerful. But after Iran was thrown into chaos by her revolution and regime change with massive purges and executions of government officials and after she was abandoned by both America and Israel and was left without any major foreign allies, Saddam calculated that now was better than ever to take advantage and attack. Iraq expected a rapid victory. But the war that followed turned into an 8-year long stalemate that most resembled the Western Front of World War I. After the massive Iraqi invasion, Iran was forced to re-evaluate the American hostage situation, and they agreed to release all 52 back into US custody after holding them for 444 days. America levied heavy economic sanctions upon Iran as a consequence and then began heavily supplying Saddam and Iraq in their war effort that they hoped would destabilize Iran even further. The Iran Iraq war would ultimately prove to be one of the largest and the bloodiest of the 20th century second half with as many as 400,000 Iranians losing their lives across the front line owing in part to the widespread deployment of chemical weapons and landmines from Iraq who is being heavily supplied and supported with conventional weapons by the United States. Throughout the war, the US contends that Hezbollah, a Shia Islamist militia organization operating out of Lebanon, who is a client of Iran, carried out multiple anti-American terror attacks across the region. In 1983, they carried out a bombing of the US embassy in Beirut, which killed 17 Americans. And later that same year, they carried out another massive truck bombing attack against the barracks of a military compound in Lebanon, which killed a further 241 American and 58 French soldiers. These events and others contributed to the United States placing Iran on their state sponsors of terrorism list the following year in 1984. By April of 1988, the Iran Iraq war was still raging and Iran had mined a large section of the Persian Gulf in order to counter the Iraqi Navy. An American frigot who happened to be passing through struck one of these mines and became severely damaged and almost sank, but with no loss of life. Regardless, America decided to initiate a retaliatory attack against Iranian targets and initiated Operation Praying Mantis. It was the largest US naval combat operation seen since the Second World War, and it saw two American surface groups, launching coordinated strikes that blew up two Iranian offshore oil platforms and sank six of their warships. The attack destroyed or severely damaged half of Iran's entire fleet and killed 56 Iranians while resulting in only two American deaths. Just 3 months later, in July of 1988, an American cruiser strayed into Iranian territorial waters and received warning shots fired from Iranian speedboats. At the same time, Iran Airflight 655 that was taking its normal flight route above from Tran to Dubai and was at this point flying over Iran's territorial waters above the straight of Hormuz. The American cruiser misidentified this commercial aircraft as an Iranian fighter jet. And assuming that they could have been under attack, they launched a missile that targeted and then completely destroyed the whole plane. There were 290 people on board that flight and 24 of them were Iranians. None of them survived the missile strike, and it was the deadliest aviation shootown incident in history until the horrible shootown of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine by pro-Russian rebels more than a quarter century later. These deadly events between both sides sharply escalated tensions between America and Iran, and each felt that the other had done grievous harm towards them. In 1995, the Clinton administration enacted a total embargo on all dealings with Iran by any American-based company, which effectively killed all trade between both countries. In 1996, the Iranian client Hezbollah carried out yet another terror bombing strike against a US target in Saudi Arabia. This time, killing 19 American Air Force personnel and wounding nearly 500 others. And then 5 years after that came the September 11th attacks. Just 4 months after 9/11, US President Bush made his axis of evil speech in which he lumped Iran, Saddam's Iraq, and North Korea altogether as an axis of evil conspiring against America. Just a little more than a year after that speech, the United States used the pretext of Saddam possessing weapons of mass destruction to invade Iraq and completely toppled his regime in around a month. No weapons of mass destruction were ever uncovered and the message sent to both Iran and North Korea was clear as day. It was either develop nuclear weapons or you would be next. North Korea managed to successfully test an atomic bomb just 3 years after the American le invasion of Iraq. While Iran hastily carried out their own nuclear weapons research as well. However, the United States made it clear that a nuclear armed Iran would never be tolerated, and a combination of sanctions and diplomacy were used for years to try and convince Iran to stop. By 2015, the Obama administration had successfully negotiated the joint comprehensive plan of action, better known colloquially as the Iran nuclear deal. The treaty's terms are complex, but the TLDDRs that the US agreed to end a sweeping series of sanctions. They had previously placed upon Iran. While Iran agreed to give up their pursuit of nuclear research and allowed foreign inspections to routinely investigate them, Iran's and America's relationship was beginning to show some signs of reproachment. But then things took another curveball. In 2016, Donald Trump was elected the new president of the United States on a platform that included a vow to fully withdraw the US from the Iran nuclear deal and to reinstate tougher economic sanctions. In 2018, Trump carried through with these campaign promises and Iran counterthreatened that they would continue on with their nuclear program and even close the straight of Hormuz to international shipping if things escalated any further, which would have completely crashed the global oil economy. Relations between the two were back to being tense and then things got even worse the next year. In May and June of 2019, several merchant ships traveling through the Persian Gulf were damaged in two separate violent incidents. The West blamed Iran and then Iran denied all involvement. In June, Iran shot down an American drone that was flying over the straight of her moves and tensions increased even further. And then in July, an Iranian oil tanker was seized by the UK as it was passing through the straight of Jibralar on the grounds that it was shipping oil to the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria in direct violation of EU sanctions. Iran countered this by capturing a British oil tanker and taking its crew hostage as it was later passing through the Persian Gulf. Both sides eventually released the other's ships and crew, but it was clear that tensions were reaching a boiling point. And then they dramatically escalated near the end of the year. On the 27th of December 2019, a rocket artillery attack from some asalent on America's K1 military base in Iraq left one US civilian contractor dead and four other soldiers wounded. America blamed the attack on Hezbollah and other Shiite Islamist militias supported by Iran. Though both Hezbollah and Iran denied all responsibility. At this point, there were about 5,000 US troops who were stationed in Iraq who were helping in the ongoing fight against ISIL. And 2 days later on the 29th, they decided to initiate a retaliatory strike against Hezbollah's weapons depots and command centers across both Iraq and Syria. These American air strikes killed 25 Hezbollah affiliated militia men and wounded nearly 60 others. Escalating things even further. A couple days after that, on December the 31st, Iranbacked militia men stormed and attacked the United States embassy in Baghdad. The embassy was heavily vandalized, but nobody on either side was killed, and the US blamed Iran once again for the provocation. And then came the 3rd of January 2020 when the already high tensions skyrocketed to levels never seen before. Kasamsmani, an Iranian major general widely believed to be the second most powerful figure within the Iranian regime, had just arrived in Baghdad on a flight. He was scheduled to meet with Iraq's prime minister later on in the day. But as he departed the Baghdad airport in a convoy of vehicles, a US drone that had been hovering nearby overhead fired a series of missiles that completely destroyed them. This missile strike had been personally authorized and ordered by President Donald Trump himself and resulted in the deaths of Solmani and nine others. This event profoundly changed the crisis between Iran and the United States. It was the first time that America had assassinated a major military leader of a major foreign country since the plot to kill Isuroku Yamamoto of the Japanese Imperial Navy back in 1943, who had been the mastermind of the Pearl Harbor attacks. 2 days later, Iran announced that it would no longer abide by any of the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal and demanded that Iraq remove all of the American presence from their country. And then on the 8th of January, 5 days after Solmani's death, Iran launched its own retaliatory strike against America, co-enamed operation martyr Solmani, Iran initiated multiple ballistic missile strikes against two US military bases within Iraq, and the entire world held its breath. This was the closest that America and Iran had ever come to fullcale war. And the crisis could have easily escalated into that. America had already rapidly deployed thousands of soldiers to the Persian Gulf from the US East Coast in the days between Solommani's death and this Iranian artillery attack, but thankfully nobody was killed by it. The bases experienced significant damage to buildings and infrastructure, but everybody present remained alive. And this was sort of a godsend because it gave both Iran and America the opportunity to deescalate without losing any face. Iran got to look strong and powerful by firing rockets at American targets. And without any casualties, America was given the option not to retaliate, which is what they chose to do. Unfortunately, though, tragedy still managed to find a way to strike. While Iran likely designed the attack intentionally to not cause any American casualties, Iran didn't necessarily know that the US wasn't going to retaliate, and their anti-air batteries across the country were on high alert for any kind of response. One of these missile batteries detected what they believed to be an American cruise missile on their radar, and they opened fire on it with two surfaceto-air missiles. It turned out that the target wasn't a cruise missile at all, but was just a regularly scheduled commercial airliner that had just taken off from Tran International Airport mere minutes before. The plane in question was Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752, traveling from Tran to Kiev with 176 people on board. The Iranian missiles completely destroyed the plane and killed everybody on board, including 82 Iranian and 63 Canadian citizens. Initially, the Iranian government denied all responsibility and attempted to cover the disaster up by blaming the crash on technical faults with the plane itself. But after raising suspicion when they wouldn't allow any investigators access to the crash site, the government finally admitted to mistakenly shooting the plane down a few days later on January 11th. That attempted cover up sparked massive protests across Iran and against the regime, and the brink of war against the United States had just narrowly been avoided. Hundreds of innocent people died as a result of the conflict between Iran and the United States in 2020. But of course, it could have always been far worse. Had the conflict escalated by any number of countless different ways, all-out war could have broken out that would have resulted in the deaths of many, many more. I only hope that peace between my country and Iran can be maintained in the future. But at the same time, I'm aware of how precarious this peace is and the history behind all of this. And I'm fearful that one day in the future, we might not get as relatively lucky as we did at the beginning of 2020. This video was originally released on Nebula as a part of my exclusive Modern Conflict series nearly 4 years ago in September of 2021. A lot has happened between the United States and Iran since then, which is why I decided to release this video on YouTube. Now, I'll be making videos about the current changes in the US Iran conflict very shortly. But in the meantime, if you'd like to help support my channel, the best way that you can possibly do so is by signing up to Nebula, where you can watch nearly 50 other exclusive episodes in my Modern Conflict series right now that'll give you further context behind the major events that are shaping our world today. 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