Video Analysis in Tehran

U.S. President Obama wants peace with Iran, but first he has to deal with a great deal of mistrust against the United States.

When Barack Obama took office he gave his advisors two months to come up with a new strategy for dealing with Iran. The shape of that strategy is slowly becoming apparent, even if the harsh language between both sides merrily continues. First, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton invited Iran to participate in an international conference on Afghanistan scheduled to take place on March 31st in the Hague. Then, in a video message on the occasion of the Persian new year, Obama extended a hand toward Iran further than any of his predecessors ever had over the past thirty years.

The reactions, however, haven’t exactly been overwhelming. Clinton’s invitation hasn’t been accepted to date and Obama’s historic offer got only a lukewarm reception in Tehran as the usual demands on Iran’s nuclear program had been appended to it. The road back to normal relations between the two nations will be a long and bumpy one. The chasms produced by the hostage situation at the U.S. Embassy in 1979 are still very deep.

Obama’s video represents a good start, however. The President promised an end to Iran’s isolation and expressed his wish that Iran again be given a respected place within the circle of nations. Tehran now has to decide whether it should continue its provocative involvement with missiles and uranium enrichment or whether it wishes to be more transparent and cooperative in its behavior. Their nuclear ambitions aren’t just a thorn in the side of the United States, Europe and Israel; nearly all Arab states are becoming increasingly critical of Iran’s attempts to become the dominant power in the region. They accuse Tehran of sponsoring radicalism everywhere, and with Iran’s program of building more and more nuclear reactors they fear a nuclear arms race.

But Obama’s initiative demands a major course correction from the United States as well. Demonizing Iran as a member of the “Axis of Evil” was just the final chapter in a long history of American political errors. The U.S.-choreographed regime change in 1953 still stands out vividly in the minds of many Iranians. The country would probably be a functioning democracy today had the CIA not been ordered by then-President Dwight Eisenhower to topple the popularly elected Premier Mohammed Mossadeq and put Shah Reza Palevi on the throne. Mossadeq wanted to nationalize Iraq’s oil fields because Western corporations were sending all the profits from them out of Iraq.

In the eight-year war between Iraq and Iran, the United States supported Saddam Hussein, including giving Iraq billions of dollars in loan guarantees with favorable conditions, thus enabling Hussein to finance his weapons purchases. More than 20,000 Iranian soldiers died in that war due to Iraq’s use of poison gas and the United States never raised a single objection. Finally, in July 1988 an American guided missile frigate mistakenly shot down an Iranian Airbus over the Persian Gulf in which 290 people on board were killed. The ship’s officers and those above them in the chain of command were never called to account for the error, but were nevertheless promoted to higher rank. An official apology to the victims’ families has never been made for the deadly mistake.