'Washington bears a considerable amount of the responsibility for the radicalism of the Iranian Revolution and the resultant deterioration in US-Iranian relations'

Extract

[...] The belief in an efficient American help was reinforced by the impact of the Wilsonian principles in Iran The United States were thus encouraged to assume a greater role in Iran: while the former British presence was seen as an obstacle to the country's development, the Iranians welcomed the American presence on the belief that the former could only benefit from the expertise of the most democratic and wealthiest country in the world. The United States stepped in in a complex Cold War context, a bit reticent as Cottam explains: “American diplomacy in the war years and immediately after was already reflecting American ambivalence with regard to involvement in Iran's internal political affairs”[3]. [...]

[...] Although such internal factors favored the recent evolutions in Iranian politics ( especially the fact that since the early 1900s, Iran had had a “history of revolution”[7]( the United States have a decisive responsibility in the 1979 Revolution and in the anti-Americanism of many Iranians. Indeed, the latter was too focused on countering Soviet expansion and had no previous involvement in Iran for it to assume any role in the assertion of Iranian democratic principles. The dual containment policy that has prevailed since the rise of Iran and Iraq as dangerous powers in the Middle East [...]