What was Americas involvement with the Iranian revolution?

Answer 1

There's a little bit of history to this.

Iran, formerly known as Persia, has been ruled by various kings and emperors for hundreds, even thousands, of years. In the 1920's, a military officer named Reza Pahlavi was able to overthrow the old Qajar shah ("shah" means "king" in Farsi, the language of Iran) and made himself the new shah. During World War II, Britain and the Soviet Union invaded Iran and overthrew the shah- they claimed that the shah was planning on joining Germany's side, but the reality is that they wanted to take control of Iran's oil and trains (the trains were needed so Britain could send supplies to Russia while avoiding Germany and Italy). The shah's son Mohammad Reza Pahlavi became the new shah.

In the early 1950's, a popular new prime minister named Mohammad Mosaddegh was elected. He was so popular that the shah became afraid Mosaddegh would try to overthrow him and take full control. Political infighting ensued, as Mosaddegh and the shah tried to outdo each other. Eventually Mosaddegh was given special emergency powers, allowing him to change the laws as he saw fit. He used these powers to make laws to limit the shah's power and make Iran more democratic.

Mosaddegh's biggest mistake was that he tried to take Iran's oil fields away from the British oil company that controlled them (the company, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company or AIOC is now known as BP). The British didn't want to lose all of that valuable oil, so they convinced the US government that Mosaddegh was a Communist and might join the Soviets- neither of which were true; he actually quite disliked the Iranian Communists. This ploy was smart of the British, because at that time, the US was in the middle of a period of the Cold War where the country was intensely paranoid and thought Communists were trying to take over, both in the US and in other countries.

So the US's CIA and the British MI6 engineered a coup d'etat where Mosaddegh was removed from power and a handpicked military general was installed in his place. During "Operation Ajax", the shah was forced to flee (because it seemed like it was going to fail), but after Mosaddegh was finally overthrown, the shah returned. It is right about here, when the USA overthrew the popular, democratically-elected leader of Iran in 1953, that America's influence helped start the long, painful road to the Iranian Revolution.

Following the Operation Ajax coup, the shah became increasingly oppressive; he formed a secret police, SAVAK, which tortured and murdered thousands of Iranians who opposed him. At the same time, the shah began spending enormous piles of money on himself, his family and friends, and had policies that favored Western, especially British and American, interests, while this was reciprocated by strong support from the West. In 1971, he held a ridiculously massive and lavish party to celebrate the 2,500th anniversary of the first ancient king of Iran, and invited world leaders to it.

However, conservative religious elements within Iran disliked the increased secular influence of the West, and began to hate the shah and his oppression. A leading Ayatollah (a sort of Shiite Muslim priest and teacher) named Ruhollah Khomeini rallied resistance to the shah's rule, also calling for the end of American influence and an end to the shah's reign. He was forced to leave the country, but in 1979, anti-shah and anti-American protests started in Iran. When the shah tried to quell the protests, he only made things worse and the protests got bigger. Eventually he gave up and fled, and went into exile in the United States.

Khomeini returned to Iran, and began setting up an oppressive "Islamic Republic", ultimately ruled by himself and other Ayatollahs. The Iranian people were still angry with the shah, and when the US refused to send him back, crowds of Iranians attacked the US Embassy in Tehran (the capital city of Iran). They captured 52 Americans and held them hostage for almost a year and a half. American special forces troops were sent on a secret mission to try to free the hostages, but some of the aircraft crashed on the way, and the attempt was a total failure. This disaster was a major factor in Jimmy Carter's failure to get reelected in 1980.

Since 1979, the United States and Iran have had very poor relations. Neither country has an embassy with the other, nor any formal diplomatic relations. Iran's "Islamic Republic" government still spreads propaganda about the "Great Satan" (their nickname for the US), and the US still does much the same in return.