Why are Iran and America so hostile towards each other lately? Well, for starters the two countries almost never talk to each other, making diplomacy nonexistent. US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns says, “It’s been 27 years since we’ve had a normal diplomatic, social and political relationship. And so for instance I am one of the people responsible for Iran in our government and yet I have never met an Iranian government official in my 25-year career.”

The animosity was not always as high as it is now. After the September 11th attacks, huge crowds in Iran turned out to hold candlelight vigils for the American victims. Sixty-thousand people even held a minute of silence at Tehran’s football stadium. With Afghanistan in Americas sights, Iran’s leaders saw an opportunity to cooperate with the Americans since they had fought the Taliban just 3 years earlier. The two worked together against this common enemy and formed a new Afghan government. However, only weeks later, President Bush gave his 2002 State of the Union address, calling Iran part of the “axis of evil”. Javad Zarif, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, said Iranian officials were “shocked” that the US was “so ungrateful about what had happened just a month ago.”

Time passed and America invaded Iraq. A month after American troops march into Baghdad, Iran made another surprising offer in the form of a letter to Washington. Iran was willing to be completely open about its nuclear program, help stabilize Iraq, end its support for Palestinian groups the US considered terrorists, and to help disarm Hezbollah. All Iran asked in return was for the US to halt further hostile actions in the region, and to be removed from the “axis of evil”.

“That letter went to the Americans to say that we are ready to talk, we are ready to address our issues,” explains Seyed Adeli, who was then a deputy foreign minister in Iran. But in Washington, the letter was ignored. Larry Wilkerson, who was then chief of staff to US Secretary of State Colin Powell, thinks that was a big mistake. “In my mind it was one of those things you throw up in the air and say I can’t believe we did this.” He says the hardliners who stood against dialogue had a memorable refrain. “We don’t speak to evil’.

After that slap in the face, the hardliners in Iran’s government gained more support than the moderates who advocated dialogue with the US. Internationally, a power shift in the Middle East began to take place as rising oil prices strengthened Iran, and America’s sweeping success in Iraq began to turn into a bloodbath against an unstoppable insurgency.

Currently, the major dilemma is with Iran’s nuclear program which the US says must be put to a halt if talks are to even begin. At the UN, Iran’s ambassador Javad Zarif said, “Had it not been for those arbitrary red lines and the pressure that went along with those arbitrary red lines imposed on our negotiating partners, I believe the nuclear issue could have been resolved long time ago.” President Ahmadinejad has requested an audience with President Bush on several occasions, only to be ignored. Let’s pray that history will not repeat itself in the coming months, and that the Bush administration will pull something from its tool box other than a hammer.

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thanks to PapaFigue for the story