Hot Spots: Iran (2004)

24 May 2005 | Jim Muir, BBC

Since Iran's 1979 revolution, the Islamic republic and the United States have been locked in a bitter mutual hostility. Will their acrimony spill over into violence, or can they put history behind them? Jim Muir reports from Tehran and Washington.

This documentary looks at the history of the relations between Iran, Britain and the United States during the last century. The film begins with the exploitation of Iran's oil by the British Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (later to become BP) during both world wars. This led to a popular rise in nationalism and the electing of Mohammad Mosaddegh as prime minister of Iran. Mosaddegh's progressive polices, including the nationalisation of the oil industry, prompted Britain and America to overthrow Mosaddegh by engineering a coup that put him in prison.

As Britain's global influence declined, America built closer relations with the Shah of Iran who became increasingly autocratic, using his secret police, SAVAK, to crush opposition. In 1979, the Iranian Revolution saw the Shah flee the country and the formation of the Islamic Republic. During this time, the US Embassy was seized by Iranian students, taking 52 personnel and citizens hostage. The mismanagement of this incident by US president Jimmy Carter, saw Ronald Reagan elected.

In 1980, Iraq invaded Iran, launching the Iran-Iraq war. With the taking of American hostages in Lebanon by Hezbollah, the US covertly supplied weapons to Iran through an Israeli intermediary in an operation to release the hostages, and at the same time planned to support the Contras in Nicaragua with proceeds of these sales. This would later be revealed as the Iran-Contra affair.

In 1988, the US shot down an Iranian airliner killing all passengers, fuelling greater resentment among Iranians towards the US.

With the commencement of the war on terrorism after 9/11, and Iran being placed on America's ‘axis of evil’, pressure mounted on Iran's nuclear program. Britain, Germany, France and Iran conducted negotiations to diffuse the nuclear crisis, with Iran promising to open up its nuclear facilities to international inspections and suspending the enrichment of uranium.

The conflict between Israel and Palestine has also been a polarising issue for the US and Iran, with Iran supporting the Palestinian cause and the Americans providing regular financial support to Israel in its illegal occupation and repression of Palestinians.

The film, produced in 2004, concludes with an assessment of the prospects of reform occurring within Iran's increasingly western society and the possibility of positive relations with the US, despite all that has happened throughout the preceding decades.