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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 301
EAN num: 9780812973365
ISBN number: 0812973364
Label: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Manufacturer: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 576
Printing Date: August 09, 2005
Publishing house: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Release Date: August 09, 2005
Sale Popularity Level: 37786
Studio: Random House Trade Paperbacks
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Product Description:
In his highly influential book The Threatening Storm, bestselling author Kenneth Pollack both informed and defined the national debate about Iraq. Now, in The Persian Puzzle, published to coincide with the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Iran hostage crisis, he examines the behind-the-scenes story of the tumultuous relationship between Iran and the United States, and weighs options for the future.
Here Pollack, a former CIA analyst and National Security Council official, brings his keen analysis and insider perspective to the long and ongoing clash between the United States and Iran, beginning with the fall of the shah and the seizure of the American embassy in Tehran in 1979. Pollack examines all the major events in U.S.-Iran relations–including the hostage crisis, the U.S. tilt toward Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, the Iran-Contra scandal, American-Iranian military tensions in 1987 and 1988, the covert Iranian war against U.S. interests in the Persian Gulf that culminated in the 1996 Khobar Towers terrorist attack in Saudi Arabia, and recent U.S.-Iran skirmishes over Afghanistan and Iraq.
He explains the strategies and motives from American and Iranian perspectives and tells how each crisis colored the thinking of both countries’ leadership as they shaped and reshaped their policies over time. Pollack also describes efforts by moderates of various stripes to try to find some way past animosities to create a new dynamic in Iranian-American relations, only to find that when one side was ready for such a step, the other side fell short.
With balanced tone and insight, Pollack explains how the United States and Iran reached this impasse; why this relationship is critical to regional, global, and U.S. interests; and what basic political choices are available as we deal with this important but deeply troubled country.
From the Hardcover edition.
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Rated by buyers 
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This book provides an in-depth accounting of the American-Iranian relationship. The book focuses very little on ancient Iranian history - instead picking up with the 1953 coup against Mossadeq, the Pahlavi shahs, the 1979 Revolution, and the US-Iranian issues that have stemmed from those incidents.
After detailing the history, the author explains why President Clinton's effort to renew ties with Iran failed. He also explains in great detail the temporary end of Iran's reformist counterrevolution, which fizzled out when President Khatami failed to challenge the right-wing clerics in control of Iran in the late 1990s. He paints a troubling picture of anti-Americanism emanating from Iran - sometimes irrational, other times understandable. His major cause of concern is Iran's nuclear weapons program, which he thinks can be derailed only by a united world (USA, Europe, China, Russia, etc).
The book basically runs through recent Iranian history and US-reactions. In the end, he advocates a particular policy (keep the Grand Bargain on the table, don't attack Iran, unite the world to stop its nuclear weapons program, etc).
It is a great (yet long) book. This one is not for you if you can only stay with a book for 200 or 300 pages. But if you hang in, you will emerge smarter than you entered, as I did.
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Mr Pollack's fine tome deserves to be read by all interested in this seemingly intractable dilemma facing Iran and the USA. He makes a brave effort at fairness but alas his imperialist upbringing colors all his views about sovereign Iran's rightful place in the post-US-hegemonic world. His book does illustrate that Iranians have been quick to blame external intervenors (of which there have been many) and less prone to self-criticism of selfish natives who sold out to the highest bidder or acquired the brightest colored feathers to line their private nests with. He shows opportunities both sides have had to foster better relations, but in the end domestic politics trumped international amity concerns. Pollack is weakest at arguing against Iran's possession of nuclear weapons, which seems absolutely necessary to prevent lunatics like Bush from launching ever-less likely wars (just because the US is currently being economically whipsawed.) His logic seems to be that if we don't like a country's government, then they shouldn't have nukes, because then we can't bully them around. Which is exactly why Iran will acquire them.
Still, imperialist or no, Pollack has a good writing style and an eye for the relevant, so this book needs to be read by fans of history, international politics and Iran.
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This is the same Kenneth Pollack who was a cheerleader for the Iraq war, then presented himself as a critic of the war to help sell the "surge?" That's all we need to know about his wisdom, foresight, and intellectual honesty. The book follows the same poor judgment and lack of intellectual vigour as his writings on Iraq.
For one thing, as Jonathan Schwarz points out, Mr. Pollack could not figure out why the Iranians, after the Iran-Iraq war, wanted to defend themselves against the US by purchasing "mostly weaponry intended for naval warfare." This made Mr. Pollack realize that "Iran was a very different country from most others and that it was a country obsessed with the United States of America."
Well, perhaps the obsession had to do with the fact that the US had overthrown Iran's secular, democratic government in the 50's. Maybe it was because the US had played both sides of the Iran-Iraq war against each other. Maybe it was because, as Barry Lando, author of 'Web of Deceit,' points out, during the Iran-Iraq war "heavily armed U.S. Special Operations helicopters...were ordered to the Persian Gulf. Their mission was to destroy any Iranian gunboats they could find." Maybe it was because, as Lieutenant Colonel Roger Charles, who was serving in the office of the secretary of defense at the time points out, plans were in place "for a secret war, with the U.S. on the side of Iraq against Iran..." Mr. Lando's 'Web of Deceit,' a book about neighboring Iraq, does a better job of explaining Iran than does Mr. Pollack's book.
A little research by Mr. Pollack may have brought up these facts. But then, they would not fit with his preconceived notions. Stay away from this book and anything Mr. Pollack puts on paper. He's pushing a specific ideology and will not let facts get in his way.
Rated by buyers 
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Kenneth Pollack is a member of the US state's National Security Council and a long-time CIA member. In his previous book, published in October 2002, he called for the invasion of Iraq. He now admits that the attack was "based on a case for war that turned out to be considerably weaker than was believed at the time." Iraq "was (mistakenly) believed to be close to acquiring nuclear weapons."
In this fascinating book, he explores Iran's relations with very first Britain and then the USA. He exposes British imperialism's profiteering in Iran: in 1950, Iran got only £57 million of the £275 million oil profits. The Anglo-Iranian Oil Company paid its workers 50 cents a day, refused to observe Iran's labour laws, bribed officials and illegally interfered in Iran's elections.
In 1950, the Attlee government planned to invade Iran with 70,000 troops, the CIA and MI6 covertly operated against the elected Mossadeq government, and together the CIA and MI6 organised the 1953 coup. After the coup, US oil firms moved into Iran, making AIOC worse off than if it had agreed to Iran's 1950 offer of a 50/50 split.
Pollack writes, "After the coup ... Iranians increasingly believed that the United States was a malevolent power that had replaced the British as the insidious force controlling Iran's destiny and preventing it from achieving its rightful stature and prosperity. As usual, that myth is not right, but it is also not entirely wrong either. There is a kernel of truth in it, and therein lies the rub: the United States did help to overthrow Mossadeq, and it was culpable in the establishment of the despotism of Mohammed Reza Shah that succeeded him." So why call it a myth?
Similarly, the CIA did organise SAVAK, the Shah's secret police, and the USA did give the Shah vast amounts of military aid. Pollack writes, "the Eisenhower administration tried hard to keep Iran at arm's length" yet in the subsequent sentence notes how the CIA developed `a liaison relationship with SAVAK." He notes the US state's `assistance to SAVAK, and other pernicious policies', yet eight lines later writes that there is `no evidence that the United States directly aided SAVAK ... or even provided general advice and assistance'. He admits that the US state never did anything to stop SAVAK's mass systematic torture. He sums up, "Washington probably had too cozy a relationship with SAVAK and may have purposely ignored the stories of its terror and its tortures, but at most, the United States was an accomplice, not the inspiration." Probably? May have? And 26 years of state terrorism and tortures are just `stories'? And isn't an accomplice guilty of the crime?
In September 1978, the day after the Shah's army, US-armed and US-trained, killed hundreds of people, President Carter called the Shah to express his support. This was part of "a coordinated campaign by the administration to demonstrate its support to the shah and convince him to deal more decisively with the crisis." On 28 December 1978, the US urged the Shah to appoint a `firm military government'.
In January 1979, the US state tried "to convince the Iranian military to take over the country and snuff out the revolution, and to assist them in doing so." This, Pollack writes, was `more fodder to feed the conspiracy theories'. Not evidence, just `fodder'. And he admits, "this central element of their paranoid fantasies ultimately turned out to be very real", so not paranoid fantasies at all then.
In the Iraqi war of aggression against Iran, the US state backed everything that Saddam Hussein did, even his chemical warfare. Pollack writes, "it was not so much a conscious decision to condone Iraq's use of chemical weapons against Iran, although some officials did do precisely that, as much as it was a general lack of interest in whatever horrible things were befalling the Iranians." Again, Pollack finds excuses for US state crimes, for who had sold Saddam Hussein the chemical weapons? Did the USA sell the weapons unconsciously?
The US state frames its enemies as coercive, irrational, and aggressive and assumes that the USA is always peaceful, rational and defensive. So Pollack can write, "One can tick off America's problems with Iran on one hand: support for terrorism, pursuit of nuclear weapons, opposition to the Middle East peace process, undermining of regional stability, and a poor human rights record." So blind is his faith in US rectitude that he cannot see that the USA has done all the things of which he accuses Iran.
Pollack reminds us of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's 2000 speech admitting, but not regretting, that the US state had backed the 1953 coup, the Shah's repression and Iraq's attack on Iran. She accused Iran - "control over the military, judiciary, courts and police remains in unelected hands." Aren't the US Defense Secretary and Attorney-General unelected political ... Read More
Rated by buyers -
You know, I am not a Colombia university intelelctual, but I find it odd that our future leaders getting educated in colombia university were more concerned wether or not Iranian homo's are free to give and receive BJ, rather than worrying about our soldiers in iraq and the fact that, this year alone, 35000 civilians have died in Iraq and the fact that we invaded Iraq utlizing WMD deception. I wonder if Colombia students have evolved so much as to have their brain hard wired to their dick? Can anyone write a book on this evolutionary puzzle?
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