For decades, Washington has insisted that its hostility toward Iran is a response to Iranian “aggression,” “terrorism,” or the Islamic Republic’s supposed refusal to “behave like a normal state.” Yet the synchronized threats issued by both Donald Trump and Joe Biden in the aftermath of Gaza’s annihilation reveal a more uncomfortable truth. American policy toward Iran has little to do with Iranian actions and everything to do with preserving an Israeli‑centered regional order at any cost.

To understand this moment, one must begin with an inconvenient historical fact that the United States foreign policy establishment prefers to forget. The United States was not always Iran’s enemy and Iran was not always the problem.

Before the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran was one of Washington’s most reliable pillars in the Middle East. The Shah’s regime, installed and protected after the CIA‑backed overthrow of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953, served American strategic interests faithfully. It purchased billions of dollars in American weapons, stabilized oil markets and acted as a regional gendarme against Arab nationalism and leftist movements. Repression, torture and political imprisonment were not obstacles to partnership. They were, in fact, quietly subsidized. A 1955 treaty of amity formalized this relationship of cooperation and mutual interest between Washington and Tehran.

Iran became an enemy not because it threatened the region, but because it defied American ownership. The Islamic Revolution shattered a core assumption of United States Middle East policy, namely that regional states exist to be managed, disciplined and aligned with American power. Iran’s crime was not extremism but autonomy. Its refusal to subordinate itself to Washington and later to normalize relations with Israel without conditions marked it for permanent punishment. By the end of 1979, diplomatic ties were severed and sustained........

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