Even prior to that, Iran was desperately trying to cultivate relations with the West in the 90s/00s before Bush suddenly declared them Axis 2.0 and created a massive security crisis on their doorstep.
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> What emerged out of this economic crisis was a reform movement led by Mohammad Khatami, who won a presidential election in 1997 on promises to cultivate civil society, fix the economy, and replace a "clash of civilizations" with a "dialogue of civilizations." The cultural transformation unfolded over the next several years was remarkable. The share of university graduates who were women topped 60 percent, a new generation of intellectuals began to favorably cite Western philosophers, and religion more or less stopped policing the daily lives of most Iranians. By 2000, the Economist was reporting that according to Iran's own clergy, fewer than 2 percent of Iranians attended mosque on Fridays. On the economic side, the neo-liberalization of Iran intensified; small-scale factories were exempted from labor laws, and state-owned industries were privatized (loosening the state's grip on the economy was thought to be the best way of decreasing state interference in Iranians' private lives). Iran's relationship with foreign nations, even the US, also improved considerably. President Clinton eased up on the economic sanctions that Reagan had put in place in 1987, and Khatami appeared on CNN to talk about his admiration for the American nation and people. Al Qaeda's attack on the United States on September 11, 2001, was met with a massive outpouring of sympathy for America in Tehran, with enormous crowds holding candlelit vigils and some sixty thousand people observing a moment of silence at a soccer match on September 23.
[1] https://www.nplusonemag.com/issue-37/politics/we-used-to-run...