With the U.S. bombing of three nuclear sites in Iran, relations between the two countries have arguably reached one of the lowest points in modern times. But the bad blood between the two countries isn't new: The U.S. and Iran have been in conflict for decades ' at least since the U.S. helped overthrow a democracy-minded prime minister, Mohammed Mossadegh, in August 1953. The U.S. then supported the long, repressive reign of the Shah of Iran, whose security services brutalized Iranian citizens for decades. The two countries have been particularly hostile to each other since Iranian students took over the U.S. Embassy in Tehran in November 1979, resulting in economic sanctions and the severing of formal diplomatic relations between the nations. In 1951, the Iranian Parliament chose a new prime minister, Mossadegh, who then led lawmakers to vote in favor of taking over the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, expelling the company's British owners and saying they wanted to turn oil profits into...
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