Documenting Iran-U.S. Relations, 1978-2015

This cable from National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski to U.S. Ambassador William Sullivan in Tehran comes as the revolutionary tide in Iran was cresting. Even at this late date, less than 10 weeks before the Shah would flee the country, many at the top levels of the U.S. government believed he would survive. Indicating the cable’s extreme sensitivity, it was sent through “privacy channels” and marked “exclusively eyes only” for the ambassador (delivered “in a sealed envelope” for good measure). Brzezinski’s instructions come from “the highest authority” and call on Sullivan to inform the Shah that “the United States supports him without reservation in the present crisis.” Within a week Sullivan would shock the White House with his famous “Thinking the Unthinkable” message (also in this collection), doubting the Shah’s future viability and advising the administration make plans for his abdication.

In the tumult of early 1979, President Carter decided to send a senior military figure, Gen. Robert Huyser, to Iran to engage chiefly with the military and help determine both their mood and the best course of action for the United States. He remained in Iran from early January to early February, a period that encompassed the Shah’s departure and Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s arrival from years of exile. Huyser, who was deputy commander of the Supreme Allied Command, was chosen in part because he had developed a relationship with Iranian military leaders – and to some extent with the Shah – over the course of several recent visits to the country.

His mission became a topic of deep suspicion within and outside of Iran, with many Shah supporters suspecting the Carter administration of seeking to undermine the monarch while others believed his role was to foment a coup, along the lines of the 1953 overthrow of Mohammad Mosaddeq. (See some of the history of that event here.) This memo from Brzezinski to the president, which attaches a reporting cable from Huyser, shows that multiple options were being considered, each depending on a highly fluid and confusing situation. The Archive’s new collection contains every available record of Huyser’s numerous conversations with senior Pentagon officials during his mission, along with related materials that show how utterly baffling the political scene was to outside observers.

After the U.S. Embassy takeover in Tehran in November 1979, a host of not just policy and political but legal issues arose that absorbed countless hours of U.S. government time. The Carter administration, anticipating intense congressional scrutiny over past U.S. policy as well as the involvement of entities such as the International Court of Justice at the Hague, decided to compile a record consisting of government records and a narrative history of U.S.-Iran relations. The project included the National Security Council and the State Department primarily and its output came to be dubbed the “White Paper,” even though it was not technically a policy statement. The Archive’s U.S.-Iran collection contains drafts and a variety of supporting materials from the White Paper, which took years to be made public. Here, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance updates President Carter on the project and offers some warnings about problems connected with it – which may partly explain the government’s reluctance to release the full record.

The Carter administration communicated frequently with its British allies about the revolutionary situation in Iran and many of these records are available in the British archives. They offer an interesting, generally sympathetic though not always eagerly supportive, angle on U.S. policy that often includes slightly disdainful remarks about the personalities involved. This cable from the British Embassy in Washington follows a few days after a major moment in U.S.-Iran relations – the American hostage rescue attempt that ended disastrously in the Iranian desert. The document relates separate conversations Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs David Owen had with Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski. Vance resigned after the failed mission, which he sharply opposed, though he confirms to Owen that this was only part of his motivation. Brzezinski, as usual, held the polar opposite view, leaving Owen with the impression he hoped the United States might go one step further and lay mines in Iranian waters. Owen includes some of his own opinions in this note which was copied to 10 Downing Street and bears Margaret Thatcher’s initials indicating the prime minister read the document.

The Iran-Iraq War was a landmark event not just for Iran and the Middle East but for the United States relationship with Iran. At first choosing neither side, Washington eventually backed Iraq, albeit reluctantly, fearing even greater threats to American and Western interests from a dominant Islamic Republic than from an emboldened Saddam Hussein. Beginning in mid-1982 when Tehran decided to push into Iraq and become the aggressor rather than the defender (against Baghdad’s initial invasion), American support spanned the political, diplomatic, commercial, intelligence, and military spheres. This approach had numerous critics inside the U.S. government, largely because of the many compromises – political and moral – it required in the face of Saddam Hussein’s repeated outrages.

Using chemical weapons against both Iranians and his fellow Iraqis was perhaps Saddam’s most reviled act and is the subject of this memo. It shows that the U.S. knew that Saddam was relying on chemical warfare “almost daily” and while the author is expressing a widely held view within the U.S. government that Washington needed to do something to stop the practice, other records in the National Security Archive’s new Iran collection show that decision-makers never undertook the steps necessary to do that. This was one of the consequences of the war that deeply embittered Iran’s rulers and made it more difficult for the two sides to reach the common ground each sought at various times.

This phone call between President Bush and the Sultan of Oman follows the murder of an American hostage, Lt. Col. William Higgins, in Lebanon. Higgins was one of several Americans still being held captive after a spree of kidnappings in Beirut in the mid-1980s by Islamic radical organizations with ties to Iran. The infamous Iran-Contra scandal had roots in President Ronald Reagan’s efforts to gain the release of American hostages in Lebanon and the issue continued to cloud the administration of his successor, George H.W. Bush. Interestingly, Reagan (according to documents in the National Security Archive’s published Iran collection) was prepared to conduct military strikes against Iranian targets if any Americans were executed by their captors. Here, Bush is clearly not prepared for such a line of attack – unless another American were to be killed. Instead, he looks for assistance to a regional political actor who would come to play a regular role in mediating between Iran and the United States, including helping to stage the initial talks that led to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015. Also of interest here is Bush’s awareness that at least some officials in Iran, including Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, were “trying to be helpful.”

A frequent concern of American policymakers over the years has been the relationship between Russia and Iran – specifically, Moscow’s willingness to sell military materiel, especially missiles, to Tehran. In this memcon between Presidents Clinton and Yeltsin, the subject is near the top of the American leader’s agenda. It would continue to figure in their conversations till the end of their terms, along with other regional issues as noted here, such as the Caspian oil pipeline and political instability in the Caucasus. While those concerns persist today, the high level of cooperation between the U.S. and Russia on display here would soon largely evaporate – except notably on the 2013-2015 negotiations over Iran’s nuclear program.

This letter from President Clinton reflects his desire to forge a better relationship with Iran’s reform-minded leader, Mohammad Khatami who had surprisingly won election to the presidency two years earlier. The problem standing in the way was the conclusion of the U.S. Intelligence Community that members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps) had taken part in the terrorist bombing of the Khobar Towers complex in Saudi Arabia in 1996, which killed 19 American servicemen and a number of Saudis. The FBI and others had pressured Clinton sharply to take retaliatory action but the lack of conclusive evidence at first made him hesitate. By the time the Saudi authorities produced confessions from the alleged perpetrators, Khatami’s election had altered the prospects for a rapprochement so dramatically that Clinton decided to forgo a harsh response.

That goal notwithstanding, the president was hardly immune to continuing political pressure to hold someone in Iran accountable for Khobar (a view he agreed with at some level himself). He therefore agreed to the decidedly mixed message that is contained in the letter he finally sent to Tehran. Instead of an unalloyed statement of interest in better relations, the letter opens with an accusation of complicity in a terrorist attack and a demand that Khatami “bring those in Iran responsible ... to justice.” Predictably, the Iranian leadership, of which Khatami was just one component (and far from the most powerful), reacted angrily – in a response that is also part of the Archive’s new Iran publication – and the initiative came to nothing.

The September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks opened an unlikely opportunity for the United States and Iran to cooperate. The Islamic Republic was apparently never seriously considered to be behind the attacks and in fact was among the first governments to express public sympathy for the victims. As it happened, the Bush administration’s decision to invade Afghanistan created specific grounds for cooperation with Tehran in the form of ensuring a new regime and system in Afghanistan that suited both countries’ needs. At the Bonn conference in late 2001, two counterparts, James Dobbins from the United States and Mohammad Javad Zarif from Iran, formed a positive working relationship and Dobbins later openly credited Zarif for his role in developing useful proposals and leveraging Iran’s relations with the Northern Alliance to push those ideas through. This cable from Dobbins, though heavily redacted in parts, gives a flavor of the talks in Bonn and a sense of how he came to lobby the Bush administration to encourage further bilateral cooperation with Iran. Events such as the Karine A seizure and President Bush’s “Axis of Evil” speech (all documented in the Archive’s new compilation) helped to solidify a general disinclination within the administration to take up the opportunity.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s preferred method of communicating with staff was via brief notes that he produced in such volume that they became known as “snowflakes.” This one to his senior military adviser is typically succinct yet opens a potentially very large topic – what is Iran’s strategy in Iraq and specifically when will they start killing “uncooperative Iraqis” and, more to the point, Americans?

The George W. Bush administration never fully warmed to the idea of negotiating with Iran about its nuclear program, but under Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice the U.S. began to work somewhat more cooperatively with European, Russian, and Chinese partners under the rubric of the P5+1. The process became mired over issues such as whether Iran had a right to enrich uranium but the talks helped prepare the ground for the subsequent Obama administration’s more successful approach. This cable provides details of the latest P5+1 offer package to Iran, then under the administration of President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad.

Under Secretary of State Wendy Sherman was the lead negotiator for the United States in the P5+1 talks with Iran that led to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015. A small handful of other members of the Obama administration, led by her predecessor William Burns, had been engaged in secret bilateral talks with Iran since at least 2013. Other than official statements and press releases, very little internal documentation has come to light about this subject because of how recent it is and the nature of sensitive diplomatic negotiations. This e-mail provides a window into both the substance of the talks and some of the process involved. Sherman would remark later how much time was taken up with briefing allies and the Congress and soliciting international support from all corners to persuade Iran to agree to the eventual nuclear deal.