The Foreign Service Journal, June 2007

burning flags televised nightly, the hysterical rhetoric, the threats, the failed rescue mission and the Iranians’ unwill- ingness to recognize their own responsibilities toward those under their country’s protection all ensured that the United States would see Iran with all the negatives noted above. In the Iranian case, the key event is the 1953 U.S.- backed coup d’etat that toppled the nationalist Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh and restored the power of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi. Although scholars still debate exactly what happened, for most Iranians there is no doubt: the U.S. arranged the overthrow of their freely- elected leader and replaced him with its puppet in order to thwart — just as the Russians and British had done ear- lier — Iranians’ desires to be free of foreign tutelage and take control of their greatest source of wealth. I was personally involved in the hostage crisis; along with my colleagues, I spent 14 months — nine of them in solitary confinement — as a “guest” of the Islamic Repub- lic from November 1979 to January 1981. Although none of my captors were old enough to have any personal mem- ory of the Mossadegh period, they knew for certain that the perfidious U.S. had instigated his downfall and was thus responsible for all of Iran’s subsequent misfortunes. Their first question (with straight faces) to me was, “What was your role in the coup of August 1953?” I could answer honestly, “A very minor one. I was 10 years old at the time.” In fact, neither Americans nor Iranians should be proud of their country’s actions in this sorry history. Whatever momentary advantage was gained and howev- er much those responsible may boast of their courage and cleverness, both sides have paid a heavy price for their acts. The two events continue to cast long shadows over U.S.-Iranian relations, and have come to assume mythic importance far beyond any reality. They have shaped each side’s view of the other in the most negative way possible. From those two events — and much that followed them — derive the views my students described above. The events of 1953 and 1979 have pro- F O C U S J U N E 2 0 0 7 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 23