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https://www.newsweek.com/iran-remembers-killed-americans-should-1445104

By Tom O’Connor

The downing of a U.S. spy drone, the near-launch of military action against Iran and recent unclaimed attacks against nearby oil tankers in the last month have not only set off tensions in the Persian Gulf, but invoked memories of an even deadlier time in the two rivals’ troubled history three decades ago when the U.S. killed nearly 300 Iranian civilians.

The U.S. and Iran have never officially fought a war but the two sides have engaged in bouts of violence since the CIA-backed coup that reinstalled Iran’s monarchy in 1953 and the 1979 Islamic Revolution that ousted that leadership for the current cleric-led government. The following decade would prove complex for Washington and Tehran amid the regional volatility of the Iran-Iraq War, during which the U.S. sought to protect Kuwaiti vessels in the Persian Gulf.

The war often spilled over into these narrow, strategic waters, where the guided-missile frigate USS Stark was bombed by a modified Iraqi warplane, killing 37 sailors in May 1987, and fellow warship USS Samuel B. Roberts struck a mine in April 1988.

The U.S. blamed Iran for the latter incident and conducted one of the largest naval operations since World War II, destroying a number of Iranian ships and killing dozens of sailors.

Less than two months later, on July 3, 1988, Aegis-armed guided-missile cruiser USS Vincennes opened fire at what its crew would later claim they thought to be an attacking Iranian F-14 fighter jet.

Instead, the aircraft was Iran Air Flight 655, a Dubai-bound civilian Airbus A300 with 290 people on board—all of whom were killed.

“The incident still resonates with Iranians,” Reza H. Akbari, program manager at the U.K.-based Institute for War & Peace Reporting, told Newsweek. “Once a year, the country’s state media rebroadcasts the tragic footage of the plane’s wreckage and civilian bodies floating in the Persian Gulf. For a few days, heart-wrenching images of family members crying over the loss of their loved ones and painful facts like the number of children on board are reviewed…

As Tehran’s embassies around the world broadcast reminders of the Iran Air Flight 655 shooting in recent days, its Washington building has since remained vacant, with diplomacy between the two seeming less likely than ever before, even as the State Department touted its efforts to upkeep the property should things ever change.

Khamenei just last week referenced the airliner downing while addressing Iranian judiciary and justice officials, calling it “human rights American style!”

Noting the history of U.S. intervention in his country, he argued: “You cannot be an agent of progress, but only a factor in making this country backward. The Iranian nation will move forward provided only that you do not get involved.”

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