The Australian Broadcasting Corp. provides a nice little explainer on Why America and Iran hate each other, beginning with the CIA/US backed coup that removed the newly elected prime minister – Mohammad Mosaddegh.

I would go back to World War II and the Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran. In 1943 the US sent 30,000 troops to Iran to help the UK-Soviet occupation.

Though Iran was neutral, the Allies considered Reza Shah to be friendly to Germany, deposed him during the subsequent occupation and replaced him with his young son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi.

Iran had to put up with regime change by the West that long ago.

The Iranian nuclear program began in the Eisenhower administration based on the Atoms for Peace initiative. The US sold Iran its first reactor and encouraged the purchase of more. Now the Iranians are criminals for wanting to power their country with their own mined uranium, rather than using their most important export for electrical production.

Mohammad Reza Shah become more of tyrant as he aged and the Iranian people started fighting back in the 1970s. The US supported him as a bulwark against the Soviet Union and communism, as we did in many places around the world. Fascists and dictators were the preferred leaders for the US policy makers for too long.

The Iranian Revolution dislodged the Shah and “Iran voted by national referendum to become an Islamic republic on 1 April 1979 and to formulate and approve a new theocratic-republican constitution whereby Khomeini became Supreme Leader of the country in December 1979.” The US gave the Shah refuge which antagonized the new leaders of Iran. The Shah’s extradition was the primary demand of the students who seized the US Embassy in Tehran.

The Iran–Iraq War began on 22 September 1980, when Iraq invaded Iran, and it ended on 20 August 1988. The US backed Iraq, which led Saddam Hussein to believe that no one would complain if he invaded Kuwait after the war.

During the war the US sent Naval vessels to the Persian Gulf to protect “neutral” (ship owners who switched the flagging of their vessels to the US) shipping. This led to another reason for Iran to dislike the US: Iran Air Flight 655:

Iran Air Flight 655 was a scheduled passenger flight from Tehran to Dubai via Bandar Abbas, that was shot down on 3 July 1988 by an SM-2MR surface-to-air missile fired from USS Vincennes, a guided missile cruiser of the United States Navy. The aircraft, an Airbus A300, was destroyed and all 290 people on board, including 66 children, were killed. The jet was hit while flying over Iran’s territorial waters in the Persian Gulf, along the flight’s usual route, shortly after departing Bandar Abbas International Airport, the flight’s stopover location. Vincennes had entered Iranian territory after one of its helicopters drew warning fire from Iranian speedboats operating within Iranian territorial limits.

It is important to remember the hundreds of Iranian deaths that the US is responsible for when talking about the number of US troops that the US claims Major General Soleimani was responsible for.

Considering that the US can’t get over the Civil War after 150 years, Iranians can’t be expected to forget what the West has done to them over the last 80.

Today marks the Feast of the Epiphany, end of the twelve days of Christmas, and Día de los Reyes in Spanish-speaking countries.

This is the customary day for gift exchanges in many Christian cultures because it is the day that the Magi finally arrived in Bethlehem with their totally inappropriate gifts after putzing around for a week and a half because they didn’t want to ask for directions.

[Give me a break! They bring soft metal, smelly tree sap, and bitter medicine associated with embalming to people who could use a hot meal, baby clothes, and diapers.]