Our History
100 years of friendship. 45 years of hostility. The hostility is between governments, not peoples.
The Age of Friendship
1834 — 1953
In 1834, Americans first made contact with Iran. What followed was not colonization, not exploitation, not the pattern that defined every other Western nation's relationship with the Middle East. Americans built schools. They built hospitals. They built colleges. For over a century, Americans were the only Westerners Iranians trusted.
Howard Baskerville was a 24-year-old American teacher in Tabriz who, in 1909, took up arms alongside Iranian constitutionalists fighting for democracy. He was killed leading a charge against royalist forces. Iranians called him "the American Lafayette of Iran." His grave in Tabriz is maintained to this day, and his portrait hangs in the Constitutional House of Tabriz.
Dr. Samuel Cochran spent decades serving Iranian communities as a physician and educator. When he died, 10,000 Iranians attended his funeral — a testament to the depth of personal connection between Americans and Iranians that no government policy could manufacture or destroy.
This was not diplomacy. This was something rarer: genuine mutual respect between two peoples, built over 120 years of shared work and shared values.
What Went Wrong
1953
In August 1953, the CIA and MI6 orchestrated Operation Ajax — the covert overthrow of Mohammad Mossadegh, Iran's democratically elected Prime Minister. Mossadegh's crime was nationalizing Iran's oil industry, which had been controlled by the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (now BP).
The coup reinstalled Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as an authoritarian ruler, backed by American money and American weapons. The Shah's secret police, SAVAK, became synonymous with repression.
One covert operation undid 120 years of goodwill.
The 1953 coup is not ancient history to Iranians. It is the foundational event that explains everything that followed — the revolution, the hostility, the mistrust. Understanding this is not about assigning blame. It is about understanding the wound that statehood has the power to heal.
The Divergence
1979 — 2026
The 1979 Islamic Revolution and the 444-day hostage crisis shattered whatever remained of the official US-Iran relationship. For 45 years, the two governments have defined each other as enemies — through sanctions, proxy wars, nuclear standoffs, and mutual rhetorical hostility.
But the hostility has always been between governments, not peoples. The evidence is in the data: Iranian-Americans are among the most successful immigrant communities in the United States. They thrive in technology, medicine, engineering, the arts, and academia. They are proof that Iranian and American values are not merely compatible — they are complementary.
Even the languages carry echoes of a shared heritage. Persian and English are both Indo-European languages, and they share hundreds of cognates. Father is pedar. Mother is madar. Door is dar. Daughter is dokhtar. The roots run deeper than either nation remembers.
Cultural Connections Americans Don't Know
369+
English words from Persian
Paradise, pajamas, khaki, bazaar, caravan, chess, checkmate, lemon, orange, spinach, candy, jasmine — all Persian.
23
Times Cyrus appears in the Bible
Cyrus the Great is called "messiah" (anointed one) in Isaiah 45:1 — the only non-Jewish figure given that title in the Hebrew Bible.
#1
Best-selling poet in America
Rumi, the 13th-century Persian poet, is the best-selling poet in the United States. More Americans read Rumi than read any American poet.
The Magi
Were Persian priests
The "Three Wise Men" who visited the infant Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew were Zoroastrian priests from Persia. The Christmas story begins in Iran.
Zoroastrianism
Shaped Western religion
Heaven, hell, angels, Satan, the apocalypse, the messiah, the resurrection of the dead — all concepts that entered Judaism, Christianity, and Islam from the ancient Persian religion.
Paradise
Is a Persian word
From pairidaeza, meaning "walled garden." The Western concept of paradise — the garden of Eden, the afterlife — is linguistically and conceptually Persian.
The Opportunity
For 45 years, the United States and Iran have tried treaties, sanctions, covert operations, proxy wars, and diplomatic isolation. None of it has worked. Treaties get torn up. Sanctions hurt civilians. Covert operations breed resentment. The cycle repeats.
Statehood breaks the cycle — not through force, but through union. Not through a deal between governments that can be reversed by the next administration, but through a constitutional bond that is permanent by design.
Two civilizations that share more than they know. One framework — the American constitutional system — that has successfully integrated every culture, language, and tradition it has ever absorbed.
The question is not whether Americans and Iranians can live together. Iranian-Americans have already answered that question. The question is whether we have the imagination to extend what already works to its logical conclusion.