G Parthasarathy
Apr 9 2015
Few developments have so significantly occupied international attention ever since the Iranian Revolution in 1979 as the hostility between Iran on the one hand and the US and Israel on the other. Tensions in US-Iran relations escalated when Iranian students supporting the Ayatollah Khomeini-led revolution attacked the US Embassy on November 4, 1979, taking 52 US diplomats hostage for 444 days. The students labelled their action as a "conquest of the American spy den". The students who engineered the hostage crisis painstakingly put together shredded documents which revealed the extent of CIA interference in Iran's domestic affairs. The US had turned a blind eye and tacitly condoned the atrocities of the Shah's intelligence services (SAVAK). The Khomeini dispensation viewed Israel's role similarly.
Relations continued to deteriorate with the Iranians calling the US as the “Great Satan” and vowing to eliminate Israel. The US labelled Iran as constituting an “Axis of Evil”. Covert operations fomenting violence were undertaken extensively by all concerned. The intensity of these operations increased after Iran commenced obtaining nuclear weapons capabilities, primarily through uranium enrichment with crucial assistance from Pakistan’s Dr A.Q. Khan.
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