To Iran, the United States was the “Great Satan,” while Washington slammed Tehran as a “rogue state” that was part of an “axis of evil.”
But as chaos engulfs the Middle East, the two are cautiously eyeing ways to work together.
An ideological chasm separates the Shiite Islamic republic from its long-time enemy in the West, yet overlapping concerns from Afghanistan to Syria and even Iraq are sowing the seeds of a hesitant rapprochement.
Restoring full diplomatic ties, severed some 35 years ago amid the 1979 storming of the US Embassy in Tehran and the painful 444-day hostage-taking, remains far off on a distant horizon.
But the willingness of the Obama administration to engage in secret negotiations in Oman last year and the new leadership of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani have already borne fruit, facilitating an interim deal in November on reining in Iran’s nuclear program.
“There is a high degree of pragmatism in the way the two countries are approaching each other, and it partly arises from a lack of other options,” said John Bradshaw, executive director of the National Security Network.