THE THIRD BIGGEST MISTAKE OF W'S PRESIDENCY...:

The British- and American-backed plot to overthrow Iran's prime minister in 1953 laid the groundwork for the 1979 Iran hostage crisis and decades of hostility with the U.S. A documentary about the plot released on Aug. 19 offers new details of what happened.

I believe it is worth recalling the time before the events chronicled in "Coup 53," when the two countries had a distinctly different relationship.

In the 1800s, American missionaries journeyed to what was then called Persia.

The missionaries helped build important institutions - schools, colleges, hospitals and medical schools - in Persia, many of which still exist.

Dr. Joseph Plumb Cochran, an American physician fluent in Persian, Turkish, Kurdish and Assyrian, founded a hospital in Urmia in 1879, as well as Iran's first medical school. When Cochran died at Urmia in northwestern Iran in 1905, over 10,000 people attended his funeral.

This image clashes with most American stereotypes of Iran and its people, and is at odds with decades of anti-Iranian sentiment emanating from Washington.

Iran and the United States, in fact, have a deep history of mutual respect and friendship.

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