U.S.-Iranian Relations
DOCUMENT IN CONTEXT
During the last years of President Bill Clinton’s second term, some leaders in Iran and
the United States appeared anxious to set aside nearly two decades of mutual hostility
and put relations on a more normal footing. Each side made gestures clearly intended
to be received positively by the other side, but domestic politics restrained each side
from moving quickly to reach a substantive rapprochement before time ran out.
A series of hesitant diplomatic moves began after the surprise election, in May
1997, of Mohammad Khatami as president of Iran. A mid-level cleric known as a rel-
ative moderate in the Iranian political context, Khatami campaigned on a platform of
domestic reform and won a landslide victory against a more hard-line Muslim cleric
who had the backing of the country’s conservative rulers. Khatami focused primarily
on a domestic agenda that included easing some of the restrictions on daily life and
political discourse imposed after the 1979 revolution.
Once he had strengthened his domestic position by gaining control (temporarily)
over the powerful security services, Khatami turned his attention to foreign affairs—
specifically to Iran’s relations, or lack thereof, with the United States. In a news con-
ference six days after his election, Khatami criticized the United States for its harsh
and “domineering” foreign policy toward Iran. Any hope of renewed relations between
the two nations, he said, would first require the United States to alter this approach.
Khatami then expressed skepticism that such change would be forthcoming. Some
seven months later, however, during a news conference on December 14, 1997,
Khatami sent an important signal to the Clinton administration, stating, “I would
hope for a thoughtful dialogue with the American people and through this thought-
ful dialogue we could get closer to peace and security and tranquility.” Khatami’s words
were by themselves innocuous, but in the context of the rocky history of U.S.-Iranian
relations, they appeared to herald a dramatic new attitude in Tehran.
Khatami was even more forthcoming in an interview with correspondent Chris-
tiane Amanpour, aired on January 7, 1998, by the Cable News Network (CNN).
Khatami began with a long discourse paying tribute to the “great American people”
and explaining some of Iran’s historical grievances against the United States. “There
is a bulky wall of mistrust between us and the U.S. administration, a mistrust rooted
in improper behaviors of the American governments,” he said, citing in particular U.S.
participation in the coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq in 1953, a
subsequent U.S. loan to bolster the shah’s government, and Washington’s demand that
Iran exempt U.S. officials from prosecution under local laws.
Despite these grievances, Khatami called in that interview for a “dialogue between
civilizations and cultures” that he said would start with exchanges of scholars, artists,
journalists, and tourists. “We are looking for a world in which misunderstandings can
be overcome, nations can understand one another and mutual respect and logic gov-
ern relations among states,” he said. Political relations between Iran and the United
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