How we got here: The history of the tension between the U.S. and Iran  

DURHAM, N.C. (WTVD) -- The relationship between the U.S. and Iran is long and complex, with many examples of tension throughout the years, though the U.S. strikes targeting nuclear sites in Iran mark a major escalation in the relationship between the one-time allied countries.

Though the history between the two countries goes back further than this, let's start in 1953. Mohammed Mossadeq had been serving as a democratically-elected Prime Minister for two years when a US-British coup was staged and he was removed to be replaced with leader more amenable to the interests of the U.S. and Britain. It marked the first time the CIA would successfully dismantle a foreign government and the last time democracy would exist in Iran through present day.

The coup brought power to a Western-friendly monarchy, led by Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. With U.S. support, the unpopular leader would remain in power until 1979 when he was overthrown by Islamic fundamentalists.

The overthrow in 1979 established Iran's Islamic Republic. In a defense report in the Library of Congress called "Iran: Background and U.S. Policy" released in May of 2025, author Clayton Thomas explains that the new republic is nuanced, calling it a hybrid political system.

"Iran has a parliament, regular elections, and some other features of representative democracy. In practice, though, the government is authoritarian, ranking 154th out of 167 countries in the Economist Intelligence Unit's 2024 Democracy Index," the report reads. "Shia Islam is the state religion and the basis for all legislation and jurisprudence, and political contestation is tightly controlled, with ultimate decision-making power in the hands of the Supreme Leader."

The overthrow also prompted the Iran Hostage Crisis. Amid the revolution taking place, the shah fled the civil unrest and eventually traveled the U.S. for cancer treatment. A group of radical college students in Iran then took 52 American hostages after storming the U.S. embassy in Tehran in an effort to demand the shah's extradition back to the United States. The hostages were held for 444 days before being finally released. The U.S. and Iran have not had diplomatic relations since the hostage crisis, and the U.S. began imposing various sanctions on Iran.

The countries clashed in the Gulf for the following decades. One of the more notable attacks took place in 1983 when Iran-backed terrorists bombed the U.S. Embassy and Marine barracks in Beirut. The bombings in Beirut killed 241 American service members and prompted the U.S. to label Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism the following year.

The Iran Contra Affair took place in 1985, with President Ronald Reagan later taking responsibility for senior members of his administration secretly selling weapons to Iran amid an arms embargo, aiming to bring seven American hostages home who were being held by Hezbollah. The terrorist organization killed two of the hostages and took years to release the others.

In 1988, the U.S. destroyed two Iranian oil platforms and a ship in the Strait of Hormuz to retaliate after an Iranian mine nearly sank an American ship in the region. A few months later, all 290 people on board an Iranian passenger plane were killed after U.S. forces shot it down, mistaking it for a fighter jet.

Sanctions against Iran intensified in 1991, with Congress passing the Iran-Iraq Arms Nonproliferation Act the following year. The act aimed to limit which materials the country could use to create advanced weaponry. A complete oil and trade embargo was enacted in 1995 by the White House against Iran.

The two countries came closer to diplomatic talks during the 1998 UN General Assembly, when a meeting was held between Iran's deputy foreign minister and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Some sanctions against Iran were lifted following this meeting. Albright would later acknowledge that the U.S.'s role in the 1953 coup was "regrettably shortsighted", but American officials never formally apologized to the Iranian government.

The 9/11 terror attacks marked a new chapter in the relationship between the U.S. and Iran. President George W. Bush started working with Iran to try to defeat a shared enemy between the two nations - the Taliban. The two countries ended up working together as well, in part to try to repatriate Afghan refugees after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan.

Then in 2002, President Bush identified the "axis of evil" as Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. In his State of the Union address, President Bush said that Iran "aggressively pursues (weapons of mass destruction) and exports terror, while an unelected few repress the Iranian people's hope for freedom." This speech halted the meetings between the U.S. and Iran related to fighting terrorist organizations like the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

The tensions between the U.S. and Iran moving forward focused intensely on whether Iran was enriching uranium to create a nuclear weapon or for civilian energy production. A U.S. National Intelligence estimate released in 2007 found that Iran didn't stop enriching uranium, but did end its nuclear arms program in 2003.

By 2015, the U.S., along with five other countries, reached a landmark nuclear deal with Iran after years of negotiations. It was called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) and it imposed restrictions on Iran's civilian nuclear enrichment program in exchange for sanctions relief.

Two years after it took effect, President Donald Trump made good on a campaign promise by withdrawing from the agreement, saying he hoped to impose "massive pressure" on Iran. The Trump Administration also alleged that Iran negotiated the JCPOA in bad faith and said Iran wasn't giving enough for how much they were getting.

"It is clear to me that we cannot prevent an Iranian nuclear bomb under the decaying and rotten structure of the current agreement," President Trump said the time. "The Iran deal is defective at its core. If we do nothing, we know exactly what will happen."

In response, Iran began boosting uranium enrichment. This withdrawal marked the beginning of modern-day military escalation between the two nations.

In January of 2020, a U.S. airstrike took out Qassem Soleimani, who was the leader of Iran's elite Quds Force. This action prompted the Iranian government to fully defy the operational restraints imposed by the Iran nuclear deal.

By early 2023, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported finding traces of uranium at Iran's Fordow nuclear facility. They report it was enriched to "near weapons-grade level that Iran claimed was accidental." Fordow would later be one of three nuclear sites attacked by U.S. forces during 2025's Operation Midnight Hammer.

"Since the United States abrogated the deal and Iran in turn stopped honoring some of its commitments, Iran has reduced its breakout time -- the amount of time it would take to accumulate enough fissile material for a nuclear weapon -- from more than a year to about 3-4 months, although the IAEA remains on the ground to verify the peaceful nature of its nuclear program," the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation said.

President Joe Biden had expressed interest in negotiating a return to the JCPOA in the final months of his term, but the State Department said they were "far away" from returning to negotiations with Iran.

The U.S. and Iran came together again for talks about Iran's nuclear program in April of 2025. An in-person meeting took place between Iran's Foreign Minister and Steve Witkoff, Trump's Middle East Envoy. Both sides confirmed progress, with Iran even vowing to discuss a new nuclear deal.

As the U.S. and Iran were planning to start coming together for talks just this month, U.S.-ally Israel started bombing Iran, saying their nuclear program was an imminent threat. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth would later claim that Iran was stonewalling in the negotiation process, which prompted President Trump to authorize strikes over the weekend on three of Iran's nuclear sites. Operation Midnight Hammer was the largest B-2 operation in history and marked the first-ever use of MOPs, or Military Ordinance Penetration bombs. The weapons are believed to only exist in the U.S. and were used because of their capability to penetrate sites deep underground.

This doesn't fully encompass the relations between the two countries, but is designed to give some context and background as the conflict in the Middle East intensifies.