Us and Iran: A Leap of Faith Apart

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The enemy has a new face in twenty-first century America. The menacing Russian of the cold war era has been replaced by the extremist Arab, epitomized by the country Iran. This shift of focus after the cold war was as predictable as it was gradual, building up since well before the cold war even began. US-Iranian relations have a long and tumultuous history. Though not always characterized by hostility, it would be wrong to ever call them friendly. Today the stakes of this relationship are more important, and volatile, than at any point of these countries involvement with one another, with the possible exception of the 1979 Iran-Hostage Crisis. Mounting tensions throughout the middle-east, concerns over Iran’s nuclear program, and the ever present importance of the oil trade in the global economy, puts the United States and Iran, as the two most influential powers in their given spheres, under more pressure than ever to find a path to rapprochement. Ideological differences and US involvement in Iranian affairs makes the path to rapprochement long and uncertain, but leads to the only beneficial solution for, not only the two countries involved, but the global community as a whole.
US interaction with Iran is older than Iran itself, and was not created through diplomatic channels but through religious ones. The first notable American interaction with the Iranian, at the time Persian, people came in 1834 with Presbyterian missionary Justin Perkins. Christian missionaries have had a presence in the mainly Islamic Iran since 1747 but Perkins was building off of the work done by British missionaries of the East India Company who arrived in Iran in 1811 with the goal of, not only finding converts but, translating the Bible into the Per...

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...r. "The Iran Narrative: The Ideational Context Of US Foreign Policy Decision-Making Toward The Islamic Republic Of Iran." Iran & The Caucasus 17.1 (2013): 41-76. Academic Search Premier. Web. May 03, 2014.
Kashani-Sabet, Firoozeh. "American Crosses, Persian Crescents: Religion And The Diplomacy Of US-Iranian Relations, 1834-1911." Iranian Studies 44.5 (2011): 607-625. Academic Search Premier. Web. May 05, 2014.
Kessler, Glenn. “In 2003, U.S. Spurned Iran’s Offer of Dialogue.” Washington Post. June 18, 2006. Online. May 03, 2014
PBS. “Timeline: A Modern History of Iran.” PBS. February 11, 2010. Online.
Sciutto, Jim. “Obama: Iran nuclear deal limits ability to create nuclear weapons.” CNN. November 24, 2013. Online. May 05, 2013
White House. “Jimmy Carter and the Iran Hostage Crisis.” White House Historical Association. Online. May 05, 2014.

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