1979: How the U.S. and Iran Went From Allies to Enemies

The United States' current hostility toward Iran is rooted in a decades-long relationship that began as a deep alliance but ended in mutual destruction. In 1972, President Nixon offered the Shah of Iran a 'blank check' for weapons and military support, cementing a partnership that made Iran the U.S.'s key regional ally between Western Europe and Japan. Yet this very alliance—built on American backing of a Westernized, autocratic monarchy—ignited the very revolution it was meant to prevent. The Shah’s rapid modernization, oil-fueled extravagance, and suppression of dissent alienated both the rural poor and religious conservatives, while American diplomats, insulated in a diplomatic bubble and forbidden from engaging opposition figures, failed to see the brewing crisis. When protests erupted in 1978, the U.S. remained blind, even as a junior diplomat’s warnings were punished. The Shah’s refusal to use force and his failure to negotiate doomed him. By 1979, Ayatollah Khomeini returned from exile to a nation in revolt, leading to the hostage crisis and the collapse of the U.S.-Iran alliance. Decades later, the U.S. is once again at war with the regime it helped create—this time relying on flawed intelligence and wishful thinking, repeating the same pattern of ignorance. The episode reveals a tragic irony: the U.S. didn’t just lose an ally; it helped create the enemy it now seeks to destroy.