The Broken Record
Some dumbass just told me to learn history. LOL. Here you go, dumbass. And before I post the entire history that's already on my site — here's the same broken record from every president since Reagan. Iran is Evil Trash. It needs to be a burning dumpster fire.
United States & Iran — Reagan to now
Forty-five years, eight presidents, and a line that runs from proxy skirmishes to a strike that killed a Supreme Leader.
force / conflict
diplomacy / opening
sanctions / pressure
context
1981–1989 · Reagan — the undeclared war
Inherits a total rupture. Tilts to Iraq, sells arms to Iran in secret, and ends up in open naval combat in the Gulf.
Jan 1981
Hostages released as Reagan is sworn in. Diplomatic relations, severed in April 1980, stay severed — and have never been restored since.
1982–87
Washington tilts toward Iraq in the Iran–Iraq war: Baghdad off the terrorism list, intelligence sharing, agricultural credits, and Operation Staunch to choke off arms to Tehran.
Apr–Oct 1983
Beirut embassy bombing (63 dead), then the Marine barracks bombing — 241 US servicemen killed. Attributed to the nascent Hezbollah with Iranian backing. US forces leave Lebanon in 1984.
1985–86
Iran–Contra. Missiles sold to Tehran via Israel to free American hostages in Lebanon, proceeds diverted to the Nicaraguan Contras. Exposed by a Lebanese magazine in Nov 1986. The first lesson of this whole story: the president who deals with Iran pays for it at home.
Oct 1987
Executive Order 12613 bans Iranian imports. Operation Earnest Will reflags Kuwaiti tankers under the US flag.
18 Apr 1988
Operation Praying Mantis — the largest US surface engagement since WWII. Two Iranian oil platforms destroyed, roughly half the operational Iranian navy sunk or crippled in a day.
3 Jul 1988
USS Vincennes shoots down Iran Air 655 — a civilian airliner, 290 dead. Washington calls it a tragic error; Tehran has never accepted that, and it remains a live grievance almost four decades on.
Aug 1988
Khomeini accepts UNSCR 598 — "drinking the poisoned chalice." The Iran–Iraq war ends.
1989–1993 · G.H.W. Bush — the offer nobody took up
"Goodwill begets goodwill." Quiet cooperation on hostages, no normalisation.
Jan 1989
Inaugural address: "Good will begets good will." An explicit signal to Tehran.
1989–91
Khomeini dies; Rafsanjani takes the presidency. Iran helps secure the release of the last Western hostages in Lebanon. Washington offers little in return — a grievance Tehran cites for years.
1991
Iran stays out of the Gulf War. Still no thaw.
1993–2001 · Clinton — dual containment, then a near-miss
Total embargo and secondary sanctions, followed by a genuine reformist opening that neither side could convert.
1993
"Dual containment" — Iran and Iraq both isolated at once, a break from playing one against the other.
1995
EOs 12957 / 12959 impose a near-total trade and investment embargo, killing a $1bn Conoco contract Tehran had deliberately awarded to an American firm as a signal.
1996
Iran and Libya Sanctions Act extends penalties to non-US companies — the birth of secondary sanctions. Khobar Towers kills 19 US airmen; later indictments point to Saudi Hezbollah with Iranian support.
1997–2000
Khatami elected. "Dialogue among civilisations," an unprecedented CNN interview, and in March 2000 Albright eases some sanctions and comes close to an apology for the CIA's role in the 1953 coup. The opening dies between Iranian hardliners and US congressional politics.
2001–2009 · G.W. Bush — cooperation, then "Axis of Evil"
Iran helps build post-Taliban Afghanistan and is called an enemy weeks later. The nuclear file becomes the whole relationship.
Late 2001
Iran cooperates against the Taliban and is instrumental at the Bonn conference in seating the Karzai government.
29 Jan 2002
"Axis of Evil." Two sentences in a State of the Union end the cooperation and hand Iranian hardliners a permanent argument that Washington cannot be dealt with.
Aug 2002
An exile group reveals the undeclared enrichment plant at Natanz and the heavy-water site at Arak. The nuclear question becomes the centre of gravity and never leaves.
2003
Iran, rattled by the invasion of Iraq, floats a "grand bargain" through Swiss channels covering the nuclear file, Hezbollah and Israel. Washington doesn't take it up. Iran suspends enrichment under the Tehran Declaration.
2005–08
Ahmadinejad restarts enrichment. Four UN Security Council resolutions impose sanctions. Meanwhile Iranian-supplied EFP roadside bombs kill hundreds of US troops in Iraq, and the covert Stuxnet effort begins.
Dec 2007
A National Intelligence Estimate finds Iran halted weaponisation work in 2003 — deflating the case for military action.
2009–2017 · Obama — pressure as leverage, and the deal
The harshest sanctions ever assembled, used to buy the only comprehensive nuclear agreement either side has signed.
2009
Nowruz video message and the Cairo speech. Weeks later the Green Movement is crushed; Obama's deliberately restrained response is criticised at home to this day.
2010–12
CISADA, UNSCR 1929, then measures targeting the central bank and expulsion from SWIFT. Iranian oil exports roughly halve; the rial collapses. Stuxnet becomes public.
2012–13
A secret back channel opens in Oman. Rouhani is elected; in Sept 2013 he and Obama speak by phone — the first direct contact between the two presidencies since 1979.
14 Jul 2015
The JCPOA. Enrichment capped at 3.67%, the stockpile cut to 300 kg, Fordow converted, Arak's core redesigned, intrusive IAEA access — in exchange for sanctions relief, with snapback held in reserve. Implementation Day Jan 2016, alongside a prisoner swap and a disputed cash transfer of long-frozen Iranian funds.
2017–2021 · Trump I — withdrawal and maximum pressure
The deal is torn up, sanctions go past their pre-2015 severity, and the two states come nearer to open war than at any point since 1988.
8 May 2018
US withdrawal from the JCPOA, over the objections of the other signatories, who all judged Iran to be complying. Full sanctions return by Nov 2018; oil waivers end in May 2019.
Apr 2019
The IRGC is designated a foreign terrorist organisation — the first time a branch of another state's armed forces is so listed.
Jun–Sep 2019
Tanker attacks in the Gulf of Oman; Iran downs a US Global Hawk and a retaliatory strike is called off minutes out. In September, cruise missiles and drones hit Abqaiq, briefly removing about 5% of world oil supply. No US military response.
3 Jan 2020
Qassem Soleimani killed by drone at Baghdad airport — the most senior Iranian figure the US had ever targeted. Iran fires ballistic missiles at Ain al-Asad (over 100 traumatic brain injuries). Hours later, jittery air defences shoot down Ukraine International 752, killing 176 — a grim echo of 1988, this time self-inflicted.
2020
Iran steadily breaches JCPOA limits. Nuclear scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh is assassinated near Tehran in November.
2021–2025 · Biden — revival fails, the region ignites
Talks to restore the JCPOA collapse; after 7 October 2023 the shadow war becomes a direct one.
2021–22
Indirect talks in Vienna get close, then stall — killed by the Mahsa Amini protests and the crackdown, and by Iran supplying Shahed drones to Russia for use against Ukraine.
Jan 2024
A drone strike on Tower 22 in Jordan kills three US soldiers — the first US combat deaths from the post-7-October exchanges. Heavy US retaliation follows across Iraq, Syria and Yemen.
Apr 2024
Israel strikes Iran's consulate annex in Damascus, killing two IRGC generals. Iran answers with over 300 drones and missiles fired at Israel — its first ever direct attack from Iranian soil. A threshold that had held for 45 years is gone.
Jul–Oct 2024
Ismail Haniyeh killed in Tehran; Hassan Nasrallah killed in Beirut. Iran fires ~180 ballistic missiles at Israel on 1 Oct; Israel's 26 Oct reply guts Iranian air defences and missile production.
Dec 2024
Assad falls. Iran loses the land bridge to Hezbollah and the keystone of its regional architecture. The "Axis of Resistance" is hollowed out in under a year.
2025–2026 · Trump II — two wars
Negotiation and bombing run in parallel. The US strikes a nuclear programme for the first time, then a Supreme Leader is killed.
Feb–May 2025
Maximum pressure restored by memorandum, alongside a letter to Khamenei and the first direct US–Iran nuclear talks since the JCPOA collapsed — Witkoff and Araghchi, via Oman and Rome.
13–24 Jun 2025
The Twelve-Day War. A day after the IAEA Board finds Iran in breach of its safeguards obligations for the first time in twenty years, Israel launches Operation Rising Lion. On 22 June the US joins — B-2s dropping bunker-busters on Fordow, Tomahawks on Natanz and Isfahan. The first time a US president has attacked another country's nuclear programme. Iran fires 550+ ballistic missiles and 1,000+ drones at Israel and hits Al Udeid in Qatar. Ceasefire on 24 June. Pentagon assessment: the programme set back one to two years.
Aug–Sep 2025
Britain, France and Germany trigger snapback. UN sanctions return in late September; the EU follows on 29 September. Iran curtails IAEA cooperation. The JCPOA is finished as a legal instrument.
Late 2025
Mass protests over economic collapse. A nationwide internet blackout and a violent crackdown; estimates cited by CFR put the dead above six thousand.
28 Feb 2026
The 2026 war. The US and Israel launch comprehensive strikes. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei is killed. Stated war aims: destroy the ballistic missile force, eliminate the navy, stop any nuclear weapon, cut the proxies loose. Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz and strikes US facilities across the Gulf; Israel invades southern Lebanon. Documented toll: 1,701+ Iranian civilians killed, up to 3.2 million displaced, 13 US service members dead.
8 Mar 2026
Mojtaba Khamenei named Supreme Leader, succeeding his father — a hereditary succession in a system built on rejecting exactly that.
7–8 Apr 2026
A two-week pause, mediated by Pakistan, in exchange for safe passage through Hormuz.
17 Jun 2026
A 14-point memorandum of understanding: permanent termination of military operations, the US lifting its port blockade and oil sanctions, Iran guaranteeing Hormuz passage, frozen assets on the table, and a 60-day window to negotiate the rest. Washington wants zero enrichment; Tehran wants guarantees against future attack, reparations, and a new Hormuz regime it would help govern — possibly with transit charges.
Jul–Aug 2026
Trump declares the ceasefire over in July. Both sides accuse the other of violations; Iran attacks merchant shipping in the Strait; Trump calls the Iranian leadership "unbelievably duplicitous" (2 Aug) while saying Hormuz could reopen "soon" (5 Aug). Houthis claim a strike on a Saudi tanker. Unresolved: enrichment, the Strait, and sanctions — the same three files, now with a new Supreme Leader and no agreed text.