Time capsule US embassy in Iran highlights decades of hostility

It's hard to miss the former United States embassy in the centre of Iran's capital Tehran, because it is daubed with striking anti-American murals.

The building, today known as the "Den of Spies" museum, encapsulates the hostility of Iran-US relations marred by decades of mistrust and crises, including the current Israel-Hamas war.

Visitors to the site are greeted by a tattered Stars and Stripes flag and a mural of the Statue of Liberty, her arm carrying a crumbled-away torch of freedom, while another depicts her with a skull face.

Inside, the building is a time capsule from the day it was seized by Iranian students on November 4, 1979.

It showcases the furniture and office equipment including shredders, computers and painstakingly reconstituted documents that embassy staff frantically tried to destroy in the hours before the compound was stormed.

A portrait of former US president Jimmy Carter still hangs on the wall of what was once the ambassador's office.

Fifty-two embassy staff were held hostage for 444 days by the students, who demanded that Washington hand over Iran's recently toppled shah, who was being treated in the United States for cancer.

The crisis came less than nine months after the removal of the US-backed shah, and was "a founding act of the Islamic Republic", master's student Hossein told AFP near the museum.

Washington officially broke off relations with Tehran in 1980, and they have been frozen ever since.

Today, the museum receives "on average 100 to 200 visitors a day, 70 percent of whom are tourists", said Majid Alizadeh, the compound's director.

"Foreigners, especially Russians and Chinese, seem more interested than Iranians."

Some tourists "come to see the place where the Americans were humiliated", he said.

- Tensions and sanctions -

Relations between Washington and Tehran have never recovered from the crisis.

"It came at a very high price," said Hossein, because "the Americans never forgave it and we have lived since in an atmosphere of tensions and sanctions".

Since the 1979 revolution Iran has maintained strong anti-American rhetoric that sits at the heart of its foreign policy.

On Wednesday, supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei praised the storming of the embassy ahead of Saturday's 44th anniversary of its seizure.

"The students entered the American embassy, captured it and exposed its secrets and confidential documents. America's reputation is gone," he told a student gathering.

"This was the blow the Iranian nation inflicted on America."

Crowds of Iranians gather each year on November 4 outside the building to denounce the "arrogance" of the United States which is often referred to in the country as the "Great Satan".

The former embassy has for years been secured by the Basij forces, a paramilitary wing of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the IRGC.

The Swiss delegation represents American interests in Iran, and recently facilitated a painstakingly negotiated prisoner swap between Tehran and Washington.

Iran is represented in the US capital by the Pakistani embassy.

The Islamic republic has been under crippling US sanctions since Washington's 2018 withdrawal from a landmark deal which granted it sanctions relief in return for curbs on its atomic programme.

Tensions between Iran and the United States have worsened since the October 7 attacks on Israel by the Palestinian Hamas militant group, which Israeli officials say killed at least 1,400 people. Another 240 were seized as hostages and taken into the Gaza Strip.

Iran has lauded Hamas's attacks and labelled as "genocide" Israel's withering bombing campaign against Gaza, which the Hamas-controlled health ministry said on Wednesday had killed more than 8,750 people.

Tehran has also lambasted Washington for backing Israel, with Khamenei saying on October 25 that the United States was a "definite accomplice of criminals".

For its part, Washington has accused Tehran of "actively facilitating" attacks on US forces in the Middle East.

Despite nearly 50 years of hostility, museum director Alizadeh believes the American embassy could be reopened "if the United States accepts and respects Iran's position in the region".

Generally, "Iranians have never had any personal problems with the Americans", he added.