Kamala Harris recently called Iran a “destabilizing, dangerous force” in the Middle East. The appropriate context for understanding this remark is the US’s own decades-long history of destabilizing Iran.
by Seraj Assi
Part 5 - Locked in Hostility
Since then, US policy toward Iran has been marred by past grievances and locked in ahistorical hostility. Not to be upstaged by his predecessors, Bill Clinton adopted a policy of “dual containment,” which employed crippling economic sanctions and preemptive military threats to weaken Iran, culminating in signing into law the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act of 1996 (ILSA).
Meanwhile, Iranian leaders attempted to mend bridges with the United States with a series of goodwill gestures. In May 1997, Iranians elected Islamic moderate and reformist Mohammad Khatami as president, who would extend an olive branch to the United States, only to be met with the Clinton administration’s deep animosity and suspicion, and its unwavering demands that Iran end its nuclear research program, as expressed in the Iran Nonproliferation Act of 2000.
Meanwhile, Iranian leaders attempted to mend bridges with the United States with a series of goodwill gestures. In May 1997, Iranians elected Islamic moderate and reformist Mohammad Khatami as president, who would extend an olive branch to the United States, only to be met with the Clinton administration’s deep animosity and suspicion, and its unwavering demands that Iran end its nuclear research program, as expressed in the Iran Nonproliferation Act of 2000.
Under George W. Bush, neoconservatives made destabilizing Iran an official policy, again despite Iranian outreach. Hours after 9/11 unfolded, Khatami sent condolences to Bush, while thousands of young Iranians held a candlelight vigil in the streets of Tehran. Bush responded by branding Iran a terrorist regime and a member of “the Axis of Evil,” along with Iraq and North Korea. (Or the “Curse,” in Benjamin Netanyahu’s newest version, which includes Gaza and Lebanon.)
When, fourteen months later, US troops invaded Iraq to depose Saddam Hussein, it was Khatami’s turn to condemn the United States. Some of Bush’s top advisers, including Vice President Dick Cheney, privately welcomed the prospect of an Israeli preemptive strike against Iran’s Bushehr nuclear complex, and even plotted regime change in Tehran. Unsatisfied with his wanton destruction of Iraq, Bush himself would order the Pentagon to plan an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities, as the former president boasts in his memoirs.
By persistently opting for economic punishment and seeking military solutions to weaken the country, the United States has always gotten it wrong on Iran — whether it was the CIA overthrowing the democratically elected Prime Minister Mossadegh; or Carter giving refuge to the authoritarian shah; or Reagan sending weapons to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War; or George W. Bush rebuffing an Iran nuclear deal, or Donald Trump sabotaging Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran and carrying out the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, or the Biden administration warmongering against Iran in a time of mounting regional conflict, stoking the flames of a wider war — on top of sending thousands more US troops to the region and securing a $8.7 billion military aid package for Israel.
The United States has worked to destabilize Iran for nearly a century. With the Democratic presidential nominee once again trotting out hawkish tirades against Iran while backing Israel’s new assault on Lebanon, American officials seem to have learned nothing from history.
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