If you want to understand the whole situation in Iran, you need to first understand a couple of things about US foreign policy – boring I know, but it’ll put things in perspective, I promise.

Ever since WW2, the US has been engaged in conflict around the world. Except that conflict isn’t quite the right word, because they manufacture it themselves and it serves a three main purposes.

First, is to stimulate their economy. See, the money that the US spends is a cornerstone of their economy. It provides employment, so that those people have money, they can spend it at other corporations, and those corporations can employ more people, and the cycle continues. So that’s one reason why the US continues its military. The alternative to this is simple, but that might be another video.

The second reason for all this military spending is to essentially steal resources, and that brings us to the first period of Iranian history I’m going to talk about. In 1951, Iranians elected a Prime Minister named Mohammad Mosaddegh. He was extremely popular and implemented a bunch of programs that were good for the working class. At the time, the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (later BP) was the major oil company in the country, and Mosaddegh saw them as influencing the politics in the country and taking the money that Iran could be spending on social programs. Mosaddegh nationalised the oil in the country, which means the government owns it, and they started spending the profits on social programs.

The US and UK governments didn’t like this, because they were getting a sweet deal buying cheap oil from BP, so they straight up organised a coup against Mosaddegh in 1953. They installed a Nazi-collaborator named Fazlollah Zahedi in his place, but the power was now in the hands of the Iranian Shah (which is like their king), who was seen as a puppet of the US (because he was). For the next 24 years, Iran sold the US cheap oil, their culture was Americanised, and the Iranians hated it. They felt like their culture was being outlawed. All this so that the US and UK could get cheap oil.

This kind of thing is not rare, there is case after case of this occurring across the world, and not just in poor countries – this happened in Australia, too. But that’s another video.

In 1979, after 24 years of (US puppet) Shah’s rule, the Iranians had had enough. There was a revolution, the Shah was overthrown, and a Supreme Leader put in his place, Ayatollah Khomeini. The US didn’t like this much at all because their cheap oil deal was over – Iran was trying to be independent. This brings us to the third reason why the US military is spread across the world.

The third reason is what’s called the threat of a good example (thanks, Noam). See, if Iran was to actually profit from their own oil (crazy idea, I know), implement policies that are good for their people (like Mosaddegh was doing), then other countries might see this, and revolt against American influence. This isn’t good, the US needs to stop that disease from spreading. That disease called democracy.

So, what does the US do about this? Iran has revolted, and now they are being run by a man not under US control. Sanctions – the ‘peaceful’ method. See, the US is a world power – this means they can not only stop trading with Iran themselves, but they can force Europe to stop trading with them. So, the US basically says, “if you trade with them, we will stop trading with you and then put you in prison”, and because the US is the world power, they listen. This cripples Iran’s economy – the idea being that Iran’s people will get shitty (because this puts them in abject poverty), and the Iranian people will revolt, leaving the space open for US puppet to be installed once again. Alright, so since 1979, Iran has been sanctioned to shit and not allowed to thrive. If the Ayatollah wasn’t already a bad leader, this shit is not going to help him.

Now, I am going to fast forward through the next 35 years, where all this happened:

• Iran-Iraq war of the 80s when a US-backed Saddam Hussein invaded Iran, resulting in a brutal WW1-style war packed with chemical weapons and trench warfare
• US invasion of Iraq, toppling of Saddam Hussein, resulting in the vacuum which led to the rise of ISIS – yay for stupid Americans

Throughout this period, Iran was on and off developing nuclear weapons. Now, just as a note on nuclear weapons: for countries like Iran, they would never actually use them. If they used them, their country would be nuked out of existence by the US – and Iran knows that. Instead, nuclear weapons (or the capacity to create them) is more of a deterrent to US invasion – this is the reason that the US is so tentative to attack North Korea – they have nukes, so leave them alone. That being said, nuclear weapons aren’t good, and any measure to decrease nuclear weapons is a good thing. Which brings us to Obama.

In 2015, a nuclear deal was made with Iran. The core of the deal was that in return for stopping nuclear weapon production, the US would lift sanctions on Iran and allow them to participate in the world economy. It was a win-win, and both parties were happy.

When Trump got into office, the nuclear deal was ripped up – more and more sanctions, now on crucial supplies like medicine. Iran decided to abide by most of the elements of the deal even with the Americans ripping it up, but with recent events, they have started nuclear development once again. Remember this part when you hear Trump saying that Iran will never have nuclear weapons: if Iran does have nuclear weapons, it will be Trump’s fault.

This is the history of Iran from about 1950 to 2020. I will make another video explaining the recent developments in a bit, but understanding this history gives you a good background for actually understanding the stories you see in the news.