American Officials Research Articles

The Opinio Juris and Opinio Moris in the Anglo-American Interventions During the Greek Civil War: An Archival Study of Legal Narratives

Abstract This article investigates the British and American interventions in Greece during the Greek Civil War, examining their legal and moral justifications. Using archival documents, the study uncovers two primary layers of discourse: the official diplomatic language of opinio juris (conviction of legality) and opinio moris (conviction of morality), alongside the covert political interests that drove these interventions. The research argues that British and American actions were primarily motivated by a ‘conviction of interest,’ with legal and moral narratives used tactically to justify their interventions. The archival materials reveal a notable lack of empathy and understanding from British and American officials regarding the trauma endured by the Greek populace due to the German occupation and collaborationist violence. Additionally, there was a significant neglect of the will of the Greek people. The study critically examines the Caserta and Civil Affairs Agreements, which provided a legal basis for British intervention, arguing that these agreements, when viewed in light of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, fail to justify the extent of foreign interference, thus questioning the authenticity of Greek consent. The article also explores the transition from British to American dominance in Greek affairs. As Britain faced economic constraints after the end of WWII, it ceded its role to the U.S., leading to the formulation of the Truman Doctrine and the implementation of the Marshall Plan. The U.S. intervention is analyzed through legal and geopolitical lenses, revealing a strategic focus on preventing communist expansion rather than providing purely legal or moral support for Greece’s recovery. Similar to British actions, American involvement often overlooked the political situation and the will of the Greek people, thereby contributing to prolonged instability.

Twisted Narratives: The Neoconservatives’ Pursuit of War for Oil in the 1970s

Abstract Following the oil crisis of 1973, President Nixon and other American officials made statements on the possibility of resorting to force in the event of OPEC’s actual “strangulation of the West” (Oil Fields as Military Objectives 1). Such statements were followed by a set of articles that rationalized taking military action to seize the oil fields in the Middle East. This paper argues that academics, political advisers, and news commentators who later became known as neoconservatives were the leading voices behind these calls for war. Their arguments and detailed plans of attack initiated a serious discussion of the military option in various decision-making circles and in different media outlets. By revisiting these articles and analyzing their narratives, this essay draws a connection between the neoconservatives’ war rhetoric in 1973–1975 and their war rhetoric in the aftermath of 9/11 attacks. The essay contends that in the effort to maintain US hegemony and dominance over a volatile and strategically vital region, neoconservatives reemployed an orientalist discourse that transformed the Middle East and its “natives” into the West’s cultural Other, namely, an opponent to democracy, modernity, and liberalism that can only be dealt with through the use of force. (RA)

A Study on the Legitimization Strategy in War Discourse

All kinds of human social activities are inseparable from language, and war is no exception. Compared with other social behaviors, people naturally have a fear and resistance to war, especially the unjust war of aggression. Faced with this situation, politicians skillfully used various discourse legitimization strategies to win public opinion support for the smooth progress of the war. This paper uses Reyes's discourse legitimization strategy framework to analyze the discourse of American officials in the Iraq War, and reveals how the United States beautifies an aggressive war into a just and noble war against terrorism.

The end of victory: prevailing in the nuclear age

America’s use of atomic weapons against Japan in 1945 helped to facilitate a quick end to World War II. But the split between former allies the United States and the Soviet Union led to a Cold War which featured a relentless competition for military superiority. Although it took Russia four years to catch the U.S. in atomic weapons, the gap was shortened to two years when it came to nuclear. The dangerous military environment in the early 1950s required the U.S. to be able to predict the Soviet Union’s response in nuclear terms. This task largely fell to a secret group with the National Security Council referred to as the Net Evaluation Subcommittee (NESC). Over the dozen years of its existence from 1953 to 1965 which the present book traces, the NESC’s annual reports furnished American officials with invaluable information and contributed significantly to nuclear weapons strategy during parts of three presidential administrations.

The Greek Connection: The Life of Elias Demetracopoulos and the Untold Story of Watergate by James H. Barron, and: Ένα σκοτεινό δωμάτιο, 1967–1974: Ο Ιωαννίδης και η παγίδα της Κύπρου—Τα πετρέλαια στο Αιγαίο—Ο ρόλος των Αμερικανών [A dark room, 1967–1974: Ioannidis and the Cyprus trap—Aegean oil—The role of the Americans]. by Alexis Papahelas (Αλέξης Παπαχελάς)

Reviewed by: The Greek Connection: The Life of Elias Demetracopoulos and the Untold Story of Watergate by James H. Barron, and: Ένα σκοτεινό δωμάτιο, 1967–1974: Ο Ιωαννίδης και η παγίδα της Κύπρου—Τα πετρέλαια στο Αιγαίο—Ο ρόλος των Αμερικανών [A dark room, 1967–1974: Ioannidis and the Cyprus trap—Aegean oil—The role of the Americans]. by Alexis Papahelas (Αλέξης Παπαχελάς) Konstantina E. Botsiou (bio) James H. Barron, The Greek Connection: The Life of Elias Demetracopoulos and the Untold Story of Watergate. New York: Melville House. 2020. Pp. xiii + 482. 21 illustrations. Hardcover $31.67. Alexis Papahelas (Αλέξης Παπαχελάς), Ένα σκοτεινό δωμάτιο, 1967–1974: Ο Ιωαννίδης και η παγίδα της Κύπρου—Τα πετρέλαια στο Αιγαίο—Ο ρόλος των Αμερικανών[A dark room, 1967–1974: Ioannidis and the Cyprus trap—Aegean oil—The role of the Americans]. Athens: Metechmio, 2021. Pp. 630. Cloth €18.90. Due to a scarcity of archival sources and the aversion of historians, the foreign and defense policies of the seven-year Greek military dictatorship (1967–1974) have not been systematically researched. Although more widely explored than most of the dictatorship’s foreign connections, Greek-American relations during this period are no exception to the rule. Ideologically driven interpretations or “what ifs” hardly substitute for structured analyses of alliances, animosities, and political decisions. As a matter of fact, they strengthen the superficial perception of the junta as a tragic parenthesis in the history of postwar Greece. This tendency is changing, however, and two recent publications are especially noteworthy. James H. Barron and Alexis Papahelas both present detailed accounts of the dictators’ worldviews and actions. They also offer thorough overviews of the Greek political ecosystem in the 1950s and 1960s, where the future dictators thrived. Various continuities and discontinuities with the earlier period place the dictatorship in a historical context driven by anticommunism—and its local version, εθνικοφροσύνη (ethnikofrosyni)—which the colonels took up as their mission when Greek politicians loosened their grip in the era of international détente. Committed to the zeitgeist of bipolarity, the colonels baptized personal competitors as enemies of the state. Barron’s story of Elias Demetracopoulos’s multiple persecutions by Greek and American officials before and during the dictatorship captivates the reader. Demetracopoulos suffered the various types of character assassination that an [End Page 137] assertive journalist posing inconvenient questions would undergo. A prominent example of his research concerned the stationing of nuclear missiles on Greek soil as a result of the “Sputnik effect.” Demetracopoulos maintained many doubts about the Greek government’s denial of any participation in the US program of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), which had involved Italy and Turkey before the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962. He believed that Greek participation in the ICBM program would be vital for alleviating the West’s feeling of technological inferiority after the Soviet Union launched Sputnik 1, the world’s first artificial satellite, which suggested that the American soil became vulnerable to a potential Soviet attack (105–110). The refusal to accept the Greek government’s denials severely damaged Demetracopoulos’s relations with the Greek premier Konstantinos Karamanlis (1955–1963). Similar difficulties awaited Demetracopoulos in the US. His close ties with top American public figures were frequently undermined by unforgiving cold warriors who saw in Demetracopoulos a threat to the dominant narrative of law and order. These contradictions underscore the difference that personality can make in any given historical situation. Barron paints a comprehensive portrait of Demetracopoulos, a devoted journalist who earned exceptional resistance credentials as a teenager during the Axis occupation. He later spent his adult life in the twilight zone between censure and shelter by Greek and American agencies and individuals who ranged from committed friends and acquaintances to various top politicians such as Konstantinos Karamanlis, George Papandreou, and Ted Kennedy. In the 1950s, Demetracopoulos had built a reputation as a trustworthy liaison between the Greek media and the American community in Greece. Shortly after the establishment of the military dictatorship he sought refuge in the US via Denmark, acting out of a justified fear that assassination attempts would no longer be limited to his character. Barron’s book stresses for American audiences the Greek dimension of the Watergate scandal. Fate reserved for Demetracopoulos a crucial part in the history of both the junta and the Nixon administration, since it was he who came to reveal the Nixon administration’s “Greek connection.” According to his reports at the...

Instruments of Empire: Colonial Elites and U.S. Governance in Early National Louisiana, 1803–1815 by M. K. Beauchamp

Reviewed by: Instruments of Empire: Colonial Elites and U.S. Governance in Early National Louisiana, 1803–1815 by M. K. Beauchamp Aaron R. Hall Instruments of Empire: Colonial Elites and U.S. Governance in Early National Louisiana, 1803–1815. By M. K. Beauchamp. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2021. Pp. xiv, 314. $55.00, ISBN 978-0-8071-7428-9.) In 1803 the United States became the latest empire striving to govern the complex world encompassed by the territory of Orleans. Native nations, enslaved Africans, free people of color, Creole slave owners, and Anglo-American settlers populated the region, and each group pursued competing desires for autonomy and freedom, power and security, and health and wealth. This internal heterogeneity was compounded by delicate geopolitical relations with imperial rivals and indigenous neighbors. If eventual statehood and affluence through expropriated labor and land was the common aim of Anglo-American arrivals, then it was the daily work of U.S. administrators to steer the territory toward these ends. That meant maintaining order while producing a new one. A cohort of local officials made the orderly administration of Louisiana their business with varying degrees of diligence and faithfulness. In Instruments of Empire: Colonial Elites and U.S. Governance in Early National Louisiana, 1803–1815, M. K. Beauchamp shows that the problems these officials encountered, the resources they accessed, and the policies they adopted “rendered Louisiana’s territorial experience republican in theory but imperial in practice” (p. 3). Taking an administrator’s-eye view of early national Louisiana, Beauchamp delivers a fine-grained analysis of how officials cultivated and exercised authority during Louisiana’s formative decade under the jurisdiction of (but not yet within) the United States. In ways that were unique to Louisiana but that also resonated with other zones of territorial rule, officials deployed techniques of imperial governance: accommodating local elites, moderating the metropole’s directives, arbitrating between factions, tailoring racial exclusions to suit strategic concerns, displaying military capacity, and modifying institutions in response to discontent. Through a careful reading of state papers and administrative correspondence, Beauchamp delivers a sophisticated account of the reorganization of Louisiana, a process that appears at once abrupt or gradual and shallow, depending on subject and vantage point. Instruments of Empire is a clarifying contribution to Louisiana political history and a valuable [End Page 347] addition to a field of scholarship on the early federal government in which continuities of political practice loom large (see Gautham Rao, “The New Historiography of the Early Federal Government: Institutions, Contexts, and the Imperial State,” William and Mary Quarterly 77 [January 2020]: 97–128). Instruments of Empire unfolds in six thematic chapters addressing different facets of official concern. It opens with a chapter analyzing external challenges to American sovereignty, introducing territorial officials’ abiding anxiety about Creole loyalties. As Spanish power receded, however, American officials came to trust the Francophone “ancient Louisianans” with greater authority (p. 183). Next, Beauchamp draws out administrators’ multipronged approach to Native American relations before the post-statehood arrival of enfranchised, land-hungry settlers. Their initiatives included efforts to maintain peaceable relations with the Comanche, counter Spanish influence among the Caddo and the Wichita, incorporate the Native communities around New Orleans known as petites nations, and court Choctaw allies. A significant third chapter illustrates how the violence of racial enslavement was foundational to governance. Slavery was the subject of extensive regulation by new elected bodies, and it created a shared interest through which American order could be appreciated by new and old slaveholders. At no time was the centrality of slavery more evident than during the suppression of the German Coast uprising, when U.S. troops provided critical support. This bloodshed confirmed slaveholders belonged to “a common planter class, since the rebels did not distinguish between Anglo and Francophone plantations” (p. 104). Given this evidence, one is left to wonder whether concerns about Creole loyalty were exaggerated. When Anglo-Americans took charge, free Black Louisianans hoped to gain rights by being the most loyal of allies; but in chapter 4, Beauchamp shows that they held little leverage to move territorial officials. The arrival of statehood in 1812 would only empower white Louisianans to make that racial order...

Nudging the Ship in the Right Direction: United States Public Diplomacy and Development in 1960s Spain

In the early 1960s, Franco's Spain began to experience a rapid process of economic growth, which was encouraged by US diplomacy as it would underpin the stability required by the US defence program in the country. However, American officials felt that such an accelerated economic development should be orderly since chaotic modernization might spark social turmoil that would compromise the US geo-strategic objectives in Spain. The article unravels the US public diplomacy programs to steer Spanish society along with a stable development path based on US-inspired capitalism and alliance with the Western bloc. It examines the cultural, educational, and informational means employed by the US government in a bid to channel the socio-economic upheaval occurring in Spain in a direction that was compatible with US security interests. We also argue that modernization theory provided the ideological and intellectual framework for US persuasion efforts to harness Spain's socio-economic ferment. Nevertheless, the ‘development model’ promoted by the dictatorship generated inequalities and conflicts that fuelled anti-American sentiment among sectors of Spanish society called to play a role in the future post-Franco transition.

Navigating “maximum pressure”: the India-Iran-US relationship under the Trump presidency

ABSTRACT The article highlights the convergence and divergence between US and India regarding Iran during the Trump administration and makes the following arguments. First, as Trump’s hard line on Iran was viewed negatively by India, New Delhi took measures to assert its longheld tradition of “strategic autonomy” in foreign policy which could not be ignored by the U.S. establishment despite Trump’s personal choices. Second, as Iran responded to the Trump’s hardening policies by gravitating toward China, the Trump administration became slightly more sensitive toward the complexities of IranChina bonhomie for Indian diplomacy. Third, although India was forced to cut back on importing Iranian oil due to sanctions in mid-2019, American officials began to view India-Iran-Afghanistan collaboration on the Chabahar port project as an opportunity to boost the Afghan economy, and exempted the project from sanctions. The article concludes that despite strong divergences on Iran, the Trump administration came to pursue a combination of pressure and engagement with India to reduce divergence on Iran.

Causes of Intense Sino-America Relations in the 21st century: Multi-Perspective Analysis

The Sino-America relations is changing constantly, but not in a specific instant. From 1949 to 1972, The United State of America start to embargo to People’s Republic of China. It is a beginning of the relationship between China and America go to deteriorate slowly. American government also imposed policies to limit visa issue [1] of the most of Chinese officials and some national company and strict control visa for Chinese visitors. This increases the ossification between America and China. In addition, during the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the Ukraine shows a pro-American position and Chinese government has relatively peaceful relationship with the Russia in order to against the American hegemony. Thus, this situation aggravated the intense situation between China and America indirectly. Furthermore, people start make the emotion of disgust for opposite country, and Ministry of Foreign Affairs express agree for people. Then, Taiwan issue became a sensitive topic for China. The Chinese government has been making efforts to resolve the Taiwan Strait issue peacefully. However, American officials’ visit to Taiwan which never notify China and provide weapons for China. This action thoroughly infuriated China and Chinese Air Force went to China’s airspace around the Taiwan at the first time and issued a warning. The reason is principle of insist only one China is a precondition for build relationship. American officials’ visit to Taiwan which mean against that in public.

The Challenges to Prohibition: Opium Law, Opium Smuggling, and Chinese in the Philippines, 1910–1935

Abstract Opium was one of the issues that had to be resolved by the Americans upon their colonization of the Philippines. The debate on the potentialities of opium dates back to the Spanish colonial period, when the colonial government framed the opium issue as both economic and moral in nature. In the end, the economic potentialities of opium outweighed its moral repercussions because the Spanish colonial government allowed its regulated use among the Chinese. In contrast, the American officials in Manila crafted a progressive prohibitionist policy based on the recommendation of the investigative Opium Committee in 1905. In terms of opium in the Philippines, the majority of research has focused on the American policies on opium and their international consequences. This study focuses on the aftermath and challenges of the American prohibitionist policy from 1910 to 1935, particularly as they related to smuggling. Using archival documents such as annual reports from the governor-general of the Philippines and other government records, the paper aims to demonstrate how and in what ways opium was smuggled in the Philippines and to analyze the various motivations, reasons, and methods used by smugglers. Furthermore, the paper explores the involvement of the Chinese in various notable opium-related cases in the Philippines. I also argue that an increase in the smuggling of opium was an unwanted aftermath of the American prohibitionist policy. The present study hopes to contribute to the growing body of literature on narcotics, drug policies, and empire building.

The Empty Gift: Citizenship, Imperialism, and Political Development in Puerto Rico

AbstractAfter nearly two decades under U.S. rule, the 1917 Jones Act granted American citizenship to Puerto Ricans. I argue that the United States strategically granted collective citizenship in order to strengthen its colonial rule. The convergence of two conditions prompted the grant of citizenship: Congress determined that the islands were strategically valuable to the United States; and Congress registered an independence movement on the island that could threaten colonial control. When Puerto Ricans demanded independence, Congress enveloped them in a bear hug that granted citizenship to weaken their movement. While citizenship was an attractive solution to many of the problems of colonial rule, there were strong objections within the United States to granting citizenship to a population considered to be nonwhite. As a result, Congress created a workaround by disentangling citizenship from statehood and from many of the rights and privileges that typically accompany it. Though citizenship is often associated with democracy and equality, American officials turned citizenship into a mechanism of control for the empire they were building. This work uncovers strategies of American territorial expansion and colonial governance and confronts deeply held notions about American citizenship and political community.

The United States and Revolutions

Revolutions are rare in human history. This study details and evaluates American policy toward five truly revolutionary situations in the post-World War II era: China, Cuba, Vietnam, Iran, and Nicaragua. American policy in these cases progressed through four relatively distinct phases: (1) American officials failed to recognize the seriousness of the threat to the incumbent pro-American regime. (2) Once policymakers became aware of the threatening situation, they encouraged the leader in the target state to initiate reforms. (3) Failure of the reform effort and a successful opposition movement led the U.S. to seek to guide the transition to a new regime. (4) While opposed to the regime which was eventually established, the U.S. still hoped to establish productive relations with it. The prevailing pattern in these cases is attributed to a misunderstanding of Third World realities and the processes of change there, and to exaggerated notions of American influence. The concluding portion of the article recommends ways to improve American perceptions and policy in such situations.

Projecting British socialism in occupied Japan: The United Kingdom liaison mission’s information activities

This article examines the British government’s information activities in early post-war Japan, and explores the unique role they played in the history of the American-led occupation. In the early post-war period, the British mission in Tokyo could only act within the constraints set by the occupation authorities. However, its close relationship with American officials allowed it to project British achievements in Japanese society through a wide range of media, including publications, exhibitions and people-to-people contacts. A particular emphasis was placed on the theme of British socialism, which was believed to be more relevant to post-war Japan than the American and Soviet models of democracy, and therefore more effective in countering the threat of communism. As such, the British welfare state and its post-war reconstruction featured prominently in this approach. Confidence in the quality of British information underpinned Britain’s overt and covert information campaigns. Also, the British view that Japan was essentially an opportunistic country meant that post-occupation Japan’s pro-Western posture was not guaranteed. Accordingly, projections of British national achievements – possessing a unique anti-communist theme – were aimed at keeping Japan rooted firmly in the Western sphere.

The Improbably Long Reach of the Rushdie Fatwa

More than 33 years after Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued the extraordinary fatwa calling for Salman Rushdie’s death for blaspheming Islam in The Satanic Verses, a Lebanese-American man attacked and badly injured Rushdie in upstate New York. Although the attacker may have drawn some inspiration from Iran’s hostility towards Rushdie, and the attack did coincide with the discovery of Iranian plots to assassinate American officials in retaliation for the killing of Qasem Soleimani, there is no evidence that Iran or any Iranian proxy was involved, and there seemed to be no information about active threats. Iran’s response to the attack was malicious and provocative, but its condemnation of blasphemy is hardly unique or surprising. It is unrealistic for some Western commentators and officials to conclude that Iran’s vendetta against Rushdie means it cannot be trusted to abide by a revived Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action.

The Ascendancy of Gabriel M. Reyes to the Archbishopric of Manila (1949-1952)

This research will discuss, narrate, and analyze the factors that led to the appointment of the first native Archbishop of Manila and how he responded to the challenges of making the faith timely for the laity during his three-year stewardship guided by Arnold Toynbee’s Challenge and Response theory applied on the micro level. The seat of the Archbishopric of the Archdiocese of Manila was regarded as the premier office to be occupied by any clergy in the Philippines. For almost four centuries, this prime seat was given to foreigners, dominated by the Spaniards. Political and religious factors determined the archbishop-to-be: the patronato real during the Spanish era and the preference of the American officials during the American period. The choice for the episcopal seat took a paradigm shift after the codification of the Canon Law in 1917 when the appointment for the episcopacy rested solely on the Pope’s decision based on the candidate’s credentials. The same Canon Law was in effect on 1949 when the Archdiocese of Manila had its first native Coadjutor-Archbishop. The native clergy who was the designated successor of the ailing Archbishop Michael O’Doherty was Gabriel M. Reyes, an Aklanon, formerly of the Archdiocese of Cebu.

A Crisis of Identity: Good Aliens, Bad Americans, or Bargaining Chips? U.S. Civilian Exchanges with the Third Reich during World War II

Throughout the Second World War, the United States took part in a series of personnel exchanges with the Third Reich and other belligerent nations. These delicate operations initially focused on diplomatic personnel and other prominent individuals trapped on both sides of the Atlantic when the U.S. entered the war. However, the evolving series of exchanges rapidly expanded to include civilians who had been interned by both sides, including ordinary men, women, and children. American officials were eager to repatriate U.S. citizens who had been caught up in the Reich or occupied countries, while they also proved eager to expel German Americans who had been detained on U.S. soil at the outbreak of war and now languished in internment camps. Many of these individuals and families would consequently end up being sent to the Reich, including in some cases American citizens. This article examines the development and dynamics of the U.S.-German civilian exchange program during the war and immediately after to explore how and why both governments were willing to take part, the domestic political calculations and geopolitical factors that impacted its direction, and the human impact of internment, detention, and repatriation in the midst of a world war.

The United States at the Center of the Action

The United States at the Center of the Action

Деятельность спецслужб США в Китайской Республике в годы гражданской войны (1927–1950 гг.)

Introduction. The Chinese Civil War was a time of rapprochement between the United States and the Republic of China, but there were enormous difficulties and contradictions between the two countries. Methods and materials. In this regard, it seems that the information of the two main agencies of the U.S. intelligence community is able to significantly supplement the picture of the interaction between the two countries and allows better understanding of why at some point Washington was forced to almost completely abandon its support for the Chiang Kai-shek regime. The article is based on the principles of historicism and consistency, as well as the methods of historical comparative studies. Analysis and results. The excessive level of corruption, which involved numerous American structures and officials, internal conflicts in the Republic’s government that influenced the situation and the course of the confrontation and were consecrated in FBI and CIA documents, contributed to the gradual withdrawal of the United States from the policy of the unconditional support for the Chiang Kai-shek regime, but the Communist victory and the establishment of the PRC made, in the absence of other real alternatives, it necessary to continue to support the Republic. The new information makes it possible to better understand how the White House treated the leader of “democratic” China and his family, as well as to better understand the role of intelligence and counterintelligence in these processes and the place of Soviet intelligence in the final stages of the heavy civil war in China (1927–1950). The materials presented in the article and their analysis show specifics and differences in approaches of the FBI and CIA on the example of work on China. The article is based on FBI and CIA archives and covers the period from 1943 to 1949.

End of the Beginning: Libya and the United States, 1969-1973

ABSTRACT Libya’s ‘September One Revolution’ that initiated the 42-year-long rule of Muammar al-Qaddafi in 1969 took the United States Embassy in Tripoli completely by surprise. American diplomats had long anticipated a coup d’état; however, no one expected it to be led by a small group of young, unknown army officers. American officials in Libya and the United States argued for months over who was in charge of the new government and the direction it would take. Was this simply a coup d’état or the beginning of a deeper socio-economic and political revolution? The failure of American diplomats to understand better the One September Revolution from the start led to policy decisions that would affect bilateral relations for years to come.

РОЗВИТОК ЕКОНОМІКИ ІРАНУ В УМОВАХ САНКЦІЙ

The article provides an attempt at complex analysis of the development of Iran`s economy under the sanctions imposed by the USA and other countries. Some background issues in the development of the modern Iranian regime have been considered. The role of the Iranian Revolution in the relations between Iran and the Western world has been analyzed. A brief historic overview of anti-Iranian sanctions has been given. The Iran hostage crisis in 1979 has been mentioned among the first events that lead to sanctions. According to the 1981 Algiers Accords, the USA promised to remove the freeze on Iranian assets and trade sanctions on Iran. Special attention has been paid to the nuclear program of Iran. The Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant has been considered as a successful example of Iran’s nuclear program development. The point of view of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the President of Iran in 2005-2013, as well as opinions of other Iranian officials about nuclear energy have been considered. Also, the attitude of American officials to Iran (e.g. inclusion of Iran to the list of rogue states) has been considered. Iran is one of the few countries in the world that are able to construct nuclear weapons. So, the Western countries including the USA are trying to prevent Iran from achieving this, even though Iranian officials deny any military use of nuclear energy. The importance of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action signed in 2015 has been underlined. The sceptical attitude of the President of the USA Donald Trump (2017-2021) to CLARIFY Iran’s professions of peace OR plans for peaceful engagement with Iran? has been noted. The Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act has been given as an example of anti-Iranian policy. The cases of attacks on tankers of Iran and other countries in the recent years have been mentioned. The example of the Shetab electronic banking clearance and automated payments system used in Iran and other countries is noted. It is mentioned that Iran’s automotive industry is comparatively successful. It is proved that the country’s economy has in general grown accustomed to the international sanctions. The importance of Iran`s political and economic cooperation with Russia, Syria, North Korea and other countries has been underlined. All of these countries are ruled by extremely authoritarian regimes. Attention is paid to the comparatively closed economic system of Iran that makes its complex study more difficult than it would otherwise be. The article has been written with the use of different scientific methods and the most up-to-date sources. It is of interest for researchers, students and other people who are interested in international economic relations.