Guardians of the Revolution: Iran and the World in the Age of the Ayatollahs [Hardcover]

Iran seems to be a topic that provokes strong, if not extreme, responses in readers. Hence the terse, highly unfavourable reviews already posted here on Amazon. I have given this book 5 stars because I strongly disagree with the abuse contained in those reviews, although if they had been more reasonable and considered, instead of hysterical, I would probably give the book 4 stars: very good but not ground-breaking.

Dr Takeyh has written a book with the policymakers in Washington very much in mind, focussing as he does on post-revolutionary Iran's foreign relations and its relations with the US in particular. I'm not interested in whether the author is an adviser to Obama, Sarkozy or Putin: what interests me is what he has written. If I were an American policymaker, or American Iran wonk, I might have different views on the book, but the book's great value to me is its succinct account of the development of Ayatollah Khomeini's thinking on the role of the clergy in an Islamic state, his role in forging the 1979 revolution, and the force of his personality that created a powerful legacy that resonates today, in the Iran of the 2009 presidential elections and their aftermath. Unlike Con Coughlin's recent "Khomeini's Ghost", which is written in a free-flowing, somewhat journalistic style (which is not to criticise it), Takeyh's approach is measured, considered, bordering on the prescriptive. Concurrently with the foreign policy considerations, he examines Iran post-1979 as falling into four distinct periods, more or less coinciding with the period up until Khomeini's death, the the three presidencies that followed: Rafsanjani, Khatami, and Ahmadinejad, each showing different approaches to the world and to the internal business of government in a revolutionary society. I found his explication of the origins of Khomeini's political "philosophy" (if one can call it that) to be more persuasive and realistic than that of Ervand Abrahamian in "Khomeinism", who seems to be at pains to depict the ayatollah not as a fanatic but as a "populist", almost as though to de-demonize him. Takeyh adverts to the populist elements in Khomeini's vision, but doesn't downplay the ruthlessness and, at times, duplicity, of the old man to achieve his single-minded aim of toppling the Persian monarchy. Certainly the creation of any sort of republican democracy was the last thing in Khomeini's mind. It seems that the revolutionaries, and Khomeini among them, had no ideas about governing the country other than getting rid of the Shah, and then ridding themselves of inconvenient rival revolutionary or liberal rivals. Of economics, diplomacy, military strategy, civil governance and all the other appurtenances of the modern state, Khomeini and his closest supporters, many of whom remain at or near the top of the Iranian government/theocracy today, seem to have been completely ignorant, even not interested. Dr Takeyh is good on the Iran-Iraq war. He also reassesses the significance of President Khatami's two terms as a "reformist" president, and shows clearly how the aspirations of Khatami and his millions of supporters were progressively thwarted and reversed by the conservative elements in the theocratic side of the complex matrix that Khomeini handed down as the constitution of Iran. What would be interesting would be to read Dr Takeyh's take on the 2009 presidential elections.

"Guardians of the Revolution" is no easy read, but repays the effort of reading carefully. What I did find irritating, however, is that Takeyh insists, almost petulantly, in transliterating fairly well-known Arabic or Persian names into unfamiliar forms, e.g., Saddam Huseyn (who he, you may ask?), Ayatollah Bihishti (Beheshti), Ayatollah Muntaziri (Montazeri). It's only a small criticism, however.

The book was written before the latest events in Iran -- namely the second "election" of Ahmadinejad, and the following suppression of the opponents of the authoritarian elements that are in power. They have only increased their power -- for now. These developments are not covered in the book.

"Guardians of the Revolution" provides useful analysis of the Iranian regime since the founding of the Islamic Republic. Takeyh does a good job describing the various factions within Iran's government and the challenges that moderates faced when trying to normalize relations with the West. I have not read any other books on Iran, so I can't really judge the accuracy of Takeyh's portrait of Iran. But my impression is that he does know Iran very well.

My main complaint about the book is that Takeyh fails to properly set the stage for the benefit of readers who don't already know the history of Iran prior to the revolution. While he does provide some background on the father of the revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini, he says very little about the regime of the Shah which the United States supported. Doing this would have helped readers better understand the antagonism that many in Iran feel toward the United States. While the policy makers in the West who this book is targeted to might already know the full history of Iran, the average reader probably does not.