Iranian loathing of U.S. on display at former embassy
Today the United States froze the assets of more than a dozen companies for evading the economic sanctions against Iran. Some of the companies are accused of helping Iran's nuclear program.
The United States and Iran, of course, have been at odds for more than three decades.
Today, in Tehran, we made a rare visit to the place where it all began.
From the outside, the former U.S. Embassy in Tehran looks much the same as it always did.
It was here in 1979, at the height of the Iranian Revolution, that a student mob stormed the compound and took 52 Americans hostage.
For the hardliners, it was their finest hour.
After 444 days, they handed over their captives. But they kept the embassy to use as a training center and anti-American museum run by the youth wing of the Revolutionary Guard -- the Basij.
Our guide was Mohammed Reza Shoghi.
Graffiti reveals the hardliners' deep-seated paranoia and loathing of America.
At the top of the stairs, Shoghi unlocked a door he said had led to the CIA command center.
And museum's first exhibit, a mockup CIA secret briefing, chaired by the last U.S. ambassador to Iran -- William Sullivan
Up the hall, there was a case containing
pictures of American kids who had gone to school on the embassy compound -- pictures, Shoghi assured us, the CIA had used to make fake IDs.
And it lies at the heart of hardline doctrine, even today.
In fact, past more graffiti, just next door, the
Basiji are holding a conference on the Geneva nuclear deal..And, it's right on message.
"It's just an excuse to bully us," parliamentarian Ali Zarkani tells them. "The Americans are lying again."
No one here is going to question it. They truly believe America will always be the Great Satan.
Of course, not all Iranians do. In fact millions would be embarrassed by these clumsy exhibits.
But to the old guard like Shoghi, they remain a proud truth.
What does that hardline view mean to the nuclear negotiations with the West?
There are hardline militants in very senior positions of power but the new president, Hassan Rouhani, is betting that the majority of Iranians want to move on. They want the sanctions lifted and they will back him in this pursuit of a comprehensive nuclear deal. But he's got to be prepared for a terrific internal power struggle.
