3 key moments that led to the U.S.-Iran war
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Hey, it's Latif from Radiolab. Our goal with each episode is to make you think, how did I live this long and not know that? Radiolab, adventures on the edge of what we think we know. Listen wherever you get podcasts. Hey, it's Rand. The current war launched by the United States and Israel against Iran has been decades in the making, and ThruLine has been covering the tension between the U.S. and Iran for years. So today, we're bringing you an episode from a past series we made. Part one of this series took us inside the CIA-backed overthrow of Iran's democratically elected prime minister in 1953. That episode is called Four Days in August. And if you haven't heard it yet, check it out in our archives.
Today, we pick the story back up in 1979.
The secular Shah the U.S. put in place after the coup in 1953 was suddenly facing a major crisis, an Islamic revolution. For the last seven days, Tehran and other cities have seen violent clashes between troops and demonstrators demanding a raise with rocks and homemade petrol bombs. Hundreds of thousands of protesters took to the streets. Inevitably, the result is massacre.
What historical events led to the U.S.-Iran conflict?
The Shah was forced to flee Iran, and a new leader, a Muslim cleric named Ayatollah Khomeini, took power. Returns to a country teetering on the brink of civil war. The crowd chanted, Allah Hu Akbar, God is great, and raced along with the motorcade, trying to get a glimpse of the Ayatollah. And this began a new era in U.S.-Iran relations. In an obvious reference to the United States, he said, foreign advisors have ruined our culture and have taken our oil. And so in the course of months, Iran went from one of America's best allies to one of America's worst adversaries. Not long after the revolution, Iran did something that solidified its new place as an American adversary. The American embassy in Tehran is in the hands of Muslim students tonight.
Spurred on by an anti-American speech by the Ayatollah Khomeini, they stormed the embassy, fought the Marine Guards for three hours, overpowered them, and took dozens of American hostages. Some 60 Americans, including our fellow citizen whom you just saw bound and blindfolded, are now beginning their sixth day of captivity inside the U.S. embassy in Tehran. It's Friday morning there now. Over the past 40-plus years, this ongoing antagonism between the two countries has led to violent, even deadly results. In this 2019 episode from our archives, we explored the direct military confrontations, the covert battles, and the 21st century cyber war between Iran and the United States, and the context behind the moment we're in today.
Hey, it's Late from Radiolab. Our goal with each episode is to make you think, how did I live this long and not know that? Radiolab, adventures on the edge of what we think we know. Listen wherever you get podcasts. Part one, do you copy? Iraq claims to have carried out more than 130 air raids yesterday and to have shot down two Iranian jets. Iraq's Saddam Hussein has been active in honouring his army's field commanders, whose string of recent military triumphs tilted the war decisively in Baghdad's favour. It was Saddam Hussein who declared, whoever climbs over our fence, we shall climb over his roof. The Iran-Iraq war was one of the bloodiest wars of the second half of the 20th century. When it was over, after eight years, there was over a million casualties, Iranian and Iraqi casualties.
Relations between Iran and Iraq worsened when the Ayatollahs took over. The Iraqis claimed that the Iranians were refusing to implement border agreements, and the first skirmishes broke out. Iraq invaded Iran on land, and they met with some initial success, especially in the southwest, which was the well-producing region of Iran. But very quickly, the war effort bogged down, and by 1982, Iran had succeeded in expelling Iraqi forces out of Iran. And it looked like momentum was working against Iraq in the long term. Iran has a much larger population, larger territorial base. So there were fears on the Iraqi side that eventually if the war dragged on, they would lose.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–1:26
2
What historical events led to the U.S.-Iran conflict?
1:26–5:20
3
How did the 1979 Iranian Revolution change U.S.-Iran relations?
5:20–13:24
4
What triggered the American embassy hostage crisis in Tehran?
13:24–28:05
5
How did the Iran-Iraq War escalate military tensions?
28:05–35:08
6
What role did oil play in the Iran-Iraq War?
35:08–49:42