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• Tensions with Iran have been an issue for the United States as well as other nations of the international community since the overthrow of the United States-backed Mohammad Reza Shah during the Iranian Revolution of 1978.

• Fast Facts

  1. 1953: U.S.-backed coup installs Western-friendly dictatorship
  2. 1978: Iranians revolt, installing U.S.-hostile government
  3. Issues: Iranian sponsorship of terrorism, human rights violations, pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, US economic sanctions against Iran

• Background

  In 1953, responding to fears that Iran would become a communist nation, the United States and United Kingdom arrange to replace Prime Minister Muhammad Mussadeq with the more Western-friendly Mohammad Reza Shah. Where Iran had previously been a parliamentary democracy, it rapidly became a dictatorship. In 1978, Iranians revolted. By 1979, they had made the Ayatollah Khomeini their new leader. When the United States agreed to let the cancer-sickened Shah into the country, Iranian students took US diplomats hostage for 444 days, bringing US-Iran relations at a new nadir. More recently, the United States has accused Iran of pursuing weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons.

• Iran Facts

  1. Capital: Tehran
  2. Government: Islamic Republic, declared in 1979
  3. Population: 71,208,000 (2007)
  4. Area: 636,372 square miles
  5. Currency: Iranian Rial (IRR)
  6. Official Language: Persian

• Related Mahalo Pages

  US - Saudi Arabia Arms Sale | Iran Nuclear Crisis | 2007 Iran Hostage Crisis | Iran | War on Terror | Mahmoud Ahmadinejad | George W. Bush | US-Iran Navy Standoff | Strait of Hormuz | Cold War II | Iran Nuclear Development

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