The relationship between the U.S. and Iran has shifted from early cooperation to a problematic feud that is leading to a revolution, wars and nuclear conflicts.
During the year 2020, the United States killed General Qassem Soleimani, a top Iranian military commander. According to the IBFBS Forces News, the U.S. commanded the drone attack on the general because he was “actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region.”
When the news was released about the killing, President Donald Trump stood at the Pentagon and said that Soleimani “should have been killed many years ago” and that he was “plotting to kill” many Americans.
U.S. officials do say they have intelligence which shows Soleimanii and seven other commanders were killed because they were planning and coordinating operations against the U.S. military. After the attack, Iranian leaders promised revenge and announced that they will no longer follow the commitment to nuclear deals.
In April of 2020, the Iranian military launched its first satellite. Tension between the countries only rose when, in October, Iran declined the UN arms embargo that had expired. In response, President Trump started a campaign against Iran with a rush of new sanctions targeting oil entities that supplied Iran.
During 2022, several Middle Eastern countries established the Negev Forum, a cooperation that aims to deter Iran. Within the same month, this organization was formed. While still in April, the United States secretly assembled military officers from Bahrain, Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE according to the CFR. This was to have a meeting focused on addressing Iran’s drone and missile capabilities..
When Russia invaded Ukraine, negotiations on the nuclear deal were paused. Negotiations resumed in June, with little progress made. U.S officials warned that time to save the deal was running out as Iran had received enough uranium to fuel a nuclear bomb.
In September, a crowd of women-led protests took place in Iran to end the Islamic Republic. Security tried to suppress the media with internet and phone service blackouts, and around thirteen thousand people were arrested. The CFR reported two hundred protesters were killed
What raised the tension between these two countries was Israel’s attack on Hamas, costing Iran a large sum of money. The country backed the Palestinian militant group by launching a surprise assault on Israel in October 2023. This attack killed around thirteen hundred Israelis, the country’s largest attack on civilians.
After the attack, the U.S. and Qatar cooperated to block Iran from accessing a six billion dollar humanitarian assistance.
The next year, Iran and its proxies, Lebanon and Yemen,expanded their attack against Israel. Israel committed its largest-ever attack on Iran. The attack targeted their air defenses and missile production facilities. The United States backed Israel with military and intelligence support against Iran.
At the start of Donald Trump’s second administration, he sent a warning to Iran that support for Houthis should end immediately.
On June 13, 2025, Israel bombed Iran in a surprise attack with the objective to damage its nuclear facilities. After weeks of nuclear talk between Washington and Tehran that failed to make progress, Trump decided to carry out an overnight attack a week after Israel.
In a press conference, Trump said ,¨Tonight I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military sucess…. Iran the bully of the Middle East must now make peace.¨
As of April 2026, massive protests spread across the United States. Soon the people of Iran started to protest, but they were facing consequences from Iran’s regime. Seeing the numbers, Trump did threaten military action if those numbers continued to rise. The president did apply a twenty-five percent on trade with any countries that traded with Iran.
