With the end of the Cold War, the disintegration of the Soviet Union, and the emergence of an infinitely more cooperative Russia, the men and women in Washington who were responsible for shaping relations and ensuring the nation's security searched for a new guiding principle. Since the hostage crisis in Tehran in 1979, the United States had been openly hostile to the Iranian government. Unfortunately it could not be disposed of as readily as Noriega's regime or as easily as the Eisenhower administration helped dispose of an earlier Iranian government in 1954. If there was to be a new and peaceful world order with the end of the Cold War, Iraq would have to be stopped. Clinton was no less determined to maintain American preeminence in world affairs than Bush and his advisers had been. Clinton chose to minimize the Japanese-American security relationship, widely considered to be the keystone of American strategy across the Pacific.