Not to provide or advocate for any particular political position. It is nonpartisan, it is intended to inform policymakers and the public about the issues they are dealing with. I want to give a few thanks, first to the Mellon Foundation for providing funding that makes these briefings possible. I also want to thank our assistant, jeffrey, for helping make the arrangements. I want to thank the office of gerry connolly, which booked the room, and i want to remind or explain why there are index cards on your seat and why i passed index cards around. What we will do after presentations by the speakers is we will get questions, and we would like you to write those questions on the index cards, rather than ask them in front of the audience. So keep your index cards ready, and jot down questions when they come to mind. Now i will turn this over to matthew to offer introductions. Matthew thank you, dane, and jeff, and everybody who helped arrange this event. Everyone out there supports the National History center and all the other professional organizations and networks that help historians thrive. And thank you for coming to the event. We will have to get you information about professional organizations like schaefer, the society for historians of American Foreign relations. Rooms are full every june when that organization meets. But what we are talking about today is the history of u. S. Iran relations. That is our theme. In this binational relationship, as with most, history is a matter of perspective how one defines it. To some, we need to understand why Thomas Jefferson had books about cyrus the great in his library. To others, we might need to study the arrival of american missionaries in iran in the 1830s and the work they continued through the mid 20th century. Some would contend this early history was displaced by the official u. S. Presence in iran, which arguably began during the Second World War and came in the form of tens of thousands of troops. Others would point to dates like 1953, when an Anglo American coup overthrew a democratically elected government in iran at the height of the cold war. Still others are interested in the more contemporary past that began in 1979. It was in that year that the near 40year rule of the u. S. Ally, the shaw came to an end. , it was replaced with the Islamic Republic of iran, which marked its 40th anniversary of the revolution in february. So we had the deep past, the cold war, and the post1979 area era. Regardless of what one studies, it is an exciting time to study of u. S. Iran relations. Today we have a range of methodologies that can help us better understand the past. Despite methodological differences, socalled traditional diplomatic and military historians regularly work alongside scholars. In this rich interpretive landscape, the annals of history continue to unfold through declassification of documents or through reinterpretation of old documents through lenses of race, culture, gender and emotion to name just a few. In addition to these historical subfields, other disciplines help drive the conversation. If one comes from the iranian studies or middle east studies background, these are inherently interdisciplinary areas of inquiry. One could borrow from other disciplines besides history, Political Science helping to move the conversation forward. That brings me to the introduction. We have two speakers today. One is a professor in the department of political silence at tulane university. Political science at tulane university. I will not read his bio to you here, but many of us have read his book, u. S. Foreign policy and the shah, published in 1991 in addition to his articles. , john is our second presenter, he is the associate director of the middle east center at the university of pennsylvania. He also has a very long list of publications, but i would alert you to one that is forthcoming titled iran and america a history and you will be able to pick that up when it is published in a year or so. With that, i will turn the floor over to the professor. Thank you, matt, and dane and the National History center for inviting me. I am going to give a sketch of u. S. Policy toward iran since the revolution 40 years ago. The u. S. Has shifted a lot, and sort of cycled back and forth between different approaches toward iran. To simplify things, i would say u. S. Policy toward iran has cycled through three main postures toward iran in the 40 years since the revolution. First, a posture of engagement in which the u. S. Uses primarily diplomacy toward iran and third parties to try to reach a comprehensive settlement of outstanding differences with iran, rather than just narrow issues, and also engagement usually is aimed at bringing about some kind of domestic change in iran, although certainly peacefully, mainly encouraging moderates. A very good model for engagement is the u. S. China rapprochement in the 1970s, when the u. S. And china went from being extremely hostile toward each other to a much more cooperative relationship. So engagement is one posture the u. S. Has taken from time to time. Secondly, coercion, where the u. S. Also is trying to big about bring about big, comprehensive change in irans behavior, but in a much more hostile way, using economic sanctions, military action of various kinds, various levels, to try to intimidate iran into backing down across the board, or what their preference usually is, using these kinds of hostile measures to carry out regime change in iran, to try to bring down the islamic regime or change it very substantially. Thirdly, containment. Repeatedly, the u. S. Has returned to a posture of containment toward iran, where we try to limit irans objectionable behavior, but without any great hope of achieving a big change. Sometime in periods of containment, the u. S. And iran have made rather limited, transactional agreements that are mutually beneficial. But containment is mainly aimed at just that, containing iranian influence, much like u. S. Containment efforts toward the soviet union throughout the cold war. Im going to briefly sketch through what i would call 10 distinct periods in u. S. Policy toward iran since the revolution. The early ones i am going to skip through quickly because they are not so important for today. There is a lot written about this, johns forthcoming book probably will be very good. Another i would recommend came out five or six years ago by david crist called the twilight war which i think you will find quite fascinating. So 10 periods in u. S. Policy toward iran. First of all, the first 10 years after the revolution, 1979 until about 1989, the u. S. Bounced back and forth between different approaches. The Carter Administration, before the u. S. Hostages were taken in november 1979, the u. S. Embassy in tehran was seized by iranian radicals. Then, the Carter Administration tried to encourage moderates and tried to swing the iranian revolution in a moderate direction. Of course this did not work. , they did to some extent continue this after the hostages were taken, but very quickly the Carter Administration was consumed with trying to get the hostages released, and iran was in a process of rapid radicalization. It made impossible any efforts by the u. S. To achieve change with iran. So the Carter Administration was a time of engagement. This was entirely frustrated by growing radicalization in iran. The Second Period was during the Reagan Administration, and you might think that this was a time of hostility and coercion toward iran. There was a certain amount of hostility. But this was not really coercion, i would score this as a phase of containment toward there were major clashes between the u. S. And iran, especially in lebanon. In the early 1980s, iran was backing groups that were precursors to hezbollah, and they did a lot of nasty things, killed several hundred americans in various terrorist attacks in the 1980s. Took 15 civilians and government personnel hostage, some were tortured to death. There was a lot of severe hostility and attacks by iran toward the u. S. Despite that, the Reagan Administration was ready restraint and did not retaliate for most of this stuff. So the early reagan period i would score as containment, and relatively effective in this regard. Iran rapidly became isolated in the early 1980s. The second reagan period is the period of the iran contra affair, a fascinating detail but ancient history. 19851986 the Reagan Administration tried, number one, to get the hostages in lebanon released, but also the irancontra affair was aimed at number two trying to initiate rapprochement with iran that hopefully would snowball and lead to comprehensive change and moderation on the part of the iranians. This, of course didnt work. ,once again, radicals in iran torpedoed this initiative. I would score irancontra as an effort toward engagement but it did not work, just like the carter efforts. After irancontra in the last two years of the Reagan Administration, this was a time of reversion to containment. There was a lot of tension between the u. S. And iran at this time, military clashes in the persian gulf in the last couple of years of the iraniraq war and various other tensions, not really coercion but certainly far from engagement. So the first 10 years, cycling back and forth between engagement and coercion, engagement and containment, nothing working very well. The First Bush Administration, coming into office in early 1989, at least initially gave the lookout pursuing rapprochement with iran, but it never really got anywhere. A famous phrase in the bush inaugural speech in 1989 was, goodwill begets goodwill. Showser words, if iran goodwill to the u. S. , mainly getting their friends in lebanon to release the remaining american hostages in lebanon, if iran shows goodwill, we will reciprocate. One problem was it took three years for the remaining hostages in lebanon to be released, it was not until december 1991 they were released, by which time things had changed quite a bit. And secondly, u. S. Priorities shifted rapidly after the desert storm war, the madrid Peace Process began, the First Bush Administration was invested in that, pushed it hard, iran was very much an opponent and that soured prospects for better relations. So i would score the First Bush Administration as a period of containment, even though there was talk about engaging, pursuing engagement, but that never got off the ground. The early clinton period largely continued this. The Clinton Administration was pursuing many of the same goals as the Bush Administration the middle east, especially the israelipalestinian Peace Process, which morphed into the oslo process under clinton. Also in the early clinton years, iran was carrying out a lot of terrorist attacks, especially in europe but also elsewhere, assassinating iranian exiles and a couple of attacks in argentina and elsewhere. So this is a time in which iran was really being rather schizophrenic and on one hand being open to the United States in terms of talking points, but on the other hand, carrying out nasty attacks. All of this culminated in the hobart towers bombing of 1986, backed by iran but not carried out by iran, in which 19 u. S. Air force personnel were killed in a dramatic terrorist attack. There was strong suspicion immediately that iran was behind this, but the Clinton Administration did not get concrete proof for quite some time. The Clinton Administration chose to wait until they had strong evidence. By the time they had strong evidence, things had changed a lot in iran, so the Clinton Administration never retaliated with military force, though they retaliated with a fascinating covert operation called operation sapphire. You can look it up on the internet and read about it. It is pretty interesting. All this changed very much, the beginning of the more important period of today in u. S. Iran relations comes in many of 1997 when a stunning election outcome emerges in iran. A very moderate figure was elected president of iran. He very quickly began making pronounced overtures towards the United States, and the Clinton Administration quickly realized there was an important change and began to reciprocate. Beginning around 1998, the Clinton Administration began pursuing engagement with iran, trying to strengthen the president , trying to take advantage of the change that had occurred in iran and see if they could make something of it. Unfortunately, nothing really came of it, certainly not in the clinton term, but it was a tantalizing period and one of several periods of engagement the u. S. Has pursued. The george w. Bush administration inherited this from clinton. And in some ways, conditions were more fruitful, having to do with what was going on internally in iran in 2001, the beginning of the george w. Bush administration. The Bush Administration and this period never formulated its iran policy and had conflicting views. Hardliners wanted to be tough on iran, but soft line people obamasto continue approach of engagement. But once 9 11 came along, that changed everything. For a few months after 9 11, iran was extremely helpful to the u. S. , especially in afghanistan. May very much they very much facilitated the u. S. Effort to overthrow the taliban in afghanistan and wipe out al qaeda Training Camps there, and then iran was very helpful in setting up the new posttaliban government headed by karzai, and the Bush Administration took advantage of this goodwill but certainly did not reciprocate. Pretty quickly, the Bush Administration after 9 11 began to reveal its new approach toward iran and the middle east in general. Broadly speaking, this was phrased at the time as the global war on terrorism. The main focus was al qaeda, but also pretty quickly iraq was brought into this as a supporter of terrorism, and iran as well. So in early 2002, bush made a speech, i think it was the state of the union, calling iran part of an axis of evil. Period of strong hostility by the United States toward iran, basically a period of coercion which continued to the remainder of the Bush Administration. The u. S. Invaded iraq in 2003. Gradually in iraq, tensions heated up between the u. S. And iran, with the u. S. Apparently supporting various ethnic Guerrilla Forces carrying out terrorist attacks inside iran, and iran backing shiite militias in iraq that carried out many, many attacks against u. S. Forces. So you could say there was really a lowlevel, secret war playing out in iran, at least in the last few years of the george w. Bush administration, with hundreds killed on both sides, hundreds of American Military personnel killed with iranian fingerprints on the weapons, and hundreds of iranians killed in terrorist attacks that seemed to have been backed by the United States, although this is kind of murky. So certainly the last seven years or so of the Bush Administration were a period of coercion and really the model of coercion that is out there today. Finally, that brings us to the Obama Administration. With the failure of the Bush Administration to achieve much from its coercive efforts, obama came into office wanting to pursue a different approach, wanting to pursue engagement. He made a series of speeches, particularly in his first year, 2009, calling for better relations with iran and tried very hard. But the iranians did not reciprocate in that period. And so gradually, the u. S. Began further ratcheting up economic sanctions begun under bush. And obama ratcheted them up quite substantially, and iran really started to scream, the economy really went into a tailspin. In about 2013, the Obama Administration launched an initiative toward iran, initially a secret initiative, to iranste an end Nuclear Program or at least a scaling back of the Nuclear Program. This led to the jcpoa Nuclear Agreement of 2015. The obama people hoped this would lead further to a broader rapprochement, and this was certainly a broad engagement effort, but nothing came of that. Iran did certainly agree to limit its Nuclear Program and has been abiding by that agreement until recently, but nothing further came of it. So in this sense, obamas engagement initiative, if the goal was broader rapprochement with iran, was very much a failure. That brings us to the Trump Administration. I would say the Trump Administration has not fully revealed its intentions toward iran, but clearly the u. S. Has been quite hostile toward iran, but i would say it is not out of the question that President Trump might decide to do with iran what he has been doing with north korea, which has been bizarre but it is not out of the question he might try that with iran, but he has hinted at that. So it is too early to say with what the tr