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Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's Golnaz Esfandiari recently covered the reaction in Iran to the prospect of a US ban on the issuing of new visas to Iranian citizens. Esfandiari is correct to note that these visa restrictions will not help the Islamic Republic's position and will in fact also hurt American soft power. That by far the most successful anti-American terrorists come from Saudi Arabia, a country not subject to the proposed ban, also deserves mention.

Why such intense hostility? I think that the hostage crisis did it. A revolution in Iran may have been inevitable. Similarly, the 1980s would have probably have been very likely to see clashing interests between revolutionary Iran and the status quo allies of the status quo United States. It's the highly televised hostage crisis, which saw the American embassy in Tehran violated by proxies of the Iranian government and the United States seemingly incapable of doing anything to save its citizens, that was the near-lethal blow. Almost four decades later, despite strong incentives for the United States and Iran to cooperate, nothing has happened.

Let's say the hostage crisis does not occur. Perhaps the embassy was evacuated in time, or perhaps the students were prevented by Iranians from taking over. How do American-Iranian relations evolve in subsequent years and decades, assuming nothing else changes?
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