There are many images that will be associated with what must be the longest negotiations in human history. Many are already being circulated on social media by Iranians. There’s the one where foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, in his shirtsleeves, is waving a draft of the agreement that he needed to get back to, or the one where he is holding both ears to hear the shouts of the reporters below. Whatever the moment, there is a constant: the ornamental cast iron grill of the 19th century balcony of the Hotel Palais Coburg frames each shot. This balcony has now entered the annals of international conflict resolution and Iranian political history.

Watching these images, other moments from Iran’s past come to mind that are framed by distinct architecture. The year is 1943. The world is at war. Britain, the US and the USSR must develop a coordinated strategy to defeat Hitler. The British in the south of the country and the Soviets in the north have occupied Iran from the start of the conflict. Stalin will only meet Churchill and Roosevelt in Tehran, as he ostensibly wants to be near Moscow. The official photographs of the three statesmen after they conclude the Tehran conference are taken on the veranda of the Soviet Union embassy in downtown Tehran, a stones throw away from the British embassy compound. They sit between hulking white columns with large arched windows behind them.

Iran is at this time an underdeveloped country and in the grip of severe food shortages. Reza Shah has been forced to abdicate his throne and leave the country. His young son, Mohammad Reza, is put on the throne by the British.



The Tehran Conference will lead to a new strategy that will help the allies win the war against fascism. Iran will provide the oil for the war effort, and the corridor for supplies from the Persian Gulf to the Soviet Union. It will be known as the “Bridge To Victory” by the Allies.

Iranians themselves will neither be informed of this vital meeting on their soil nor invited to it. Churchill will summon the young Shah to the embassy for a brief meeting. Stalin is the only leader who will visit him in his palace as a monarch. And even then he will have his arm twisted. The oil that will help win the war against fascism does not belong to Iranians - yet. It will be another decade before Mohammad Mossadeq nationalises the Iranian oil industry, and in the process engineer his own demise.



Prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh’s house after the 1953 coup. Photograph: AP

On another veranda less than a mile north of the embassies, we can see tracks of a tank in a private garden. The house is a large house by Iranian standards with plaster colonnades characteristic of Qajar architecture. There is no one on the porch that is daubed in slogans declaring Death to Mossadeq. It is 19 of August 1953. The Anglo American coup conceived by the British and conducted by the CIA has been successful. Mobs and a tank have overrun the premier’s house. There are papers strewn all across the garden. Mossadeq has been arrested. He will die in exile in his garden outside the boundaries of Tehran under house arrest. He will be buried in the front room of his rural home. Even in death, he will not find reprieve from his exile. He must be forgotten even as the country enjoys the riches of the oil that he freed for them. On a shelf in the room next to this makeshift mausoleum is a picture of the premier smartly dressed in a sharp suit standing atop a platform, smiling next to the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia. It is 1951 and he has just delivered an emotive speech drawing parallels between the American emancipation from the British in 1776 and Iran’s attempts to nationalize its oil industry. Back then many Iranians believed that the United States with its constitutional affirmations of freedom, was Iran’s best ally against the old meddling imperial forces of Britain and Russia.

A raised small platform in the seminarian city of Qom, 1964. A middle-aged cleric sits slightly elevated on a traditional pulpit above a sea of white turbans. He is preaching to his juniors, deploring a recently passed law that exempts American military personnel from being tried by Iranian courts if they commit a crime in the country. He declares that the Shah’s capitulation law is humiliating. For this he will be slapped by the Shah’s prime minister and eventually exiled, first to Iraq and then to France, only to return 15 years later to become the supreme spiritual leader of Iran after the revolution. On his return he will greet his loyal followers through a raised window at the Refah School for girls. History is framed in the humble wooden struts of the window. There are no balconies here. On the rooftop though, summary executions of those close to the ousted Shah will take place during the night. During the day, the school yard heaves with the mass of people who have come to hear Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini speak of his vision for a new Iran. It’s Februaury 1979.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ayatollah Khomeini, center, waves to followers as he appears at the window of his headquarters in Tehran, Iran on 2 February 1979, the second day of his return from exile. Photograph: AP

A little further north on a boulevard named after the legendary throne of a Persian king, the American eagle is about to come under assault. It’s mid autumn and it’s payback time. Men are climbing over the wrought iron gates of the United States embassy in Tehran. There is a short flight of steps to the solid entrance of the two story red brick building with an austere 1930s utilitarian design. The Americans staff call the building “Henderson High” because it looks like the high schools built back in the United States. Soon there will be men blindfolded and marched down those concrete steps for the world to see. There is no turning back now. We will shock the world. We will break the rules and step on the soil of a sovereign nation uninvited and treat its citizens with contempt.

We will behave in a belligerent way because we are tired of being pushed around. The hostages will be released after 444 days. But during that time we will become increasingly alone in the world. We will feel this in the soon-to-come eight year war with our neighbour. We will feel isolated and we will wear this isolation with an angry pride. Our young will perish in a seemingly endless war; the world will watch as they are gassed by Saddam. But we will resist. Every year we will burn the American flag, chanting Death to America in front of what we now call the nest of spies. This will become the favourite spectacle of the world press.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif gestures towards reporters from a balcony of the Palais Coburg Hotel. Photograph: Joe Klamar/AFP/Getty Images

And the world press will stand under the balcony of the Cobourg Palais hotel for 17 days and watch us end our standoff with the world. More reporters will hover on the hot pavements of our capital waiting for what is now another Iranian spectacle, the street celebrations. We will come and they will see us dance and they will ask us about the sanctions and the centrifuges, the economy and the future, they will take pictures of how our women dress.

On the many balconies of the city, we will watch the celebrations and share a multitude of images on our smartphones from the day history became brighter from a balcony in Vienna. We will discuss the implications endlessly. Will the end of sanctions make life easier? Were we right to give up our centrifuges? Will this new deal make us acceptable in polite international company? What will the future hold? How soon and how meaningful will the changes be?

We will share hopes and doubts knowing the answer to these questions will take a while to manifest, but one thing is certain, even as we feel that we have lost time and life to our revolution, we are also aware that we have come a long way from that balcony in the Soviet embassy.