The Persian Puzzle: Deciphering the Twenty-five-Year Conflict Between the United States and Iran [Kindle Edition]

I approached this book not knowing really what to expect, i.e.: does the book try to justify past US policies or is it a rational discussion. It is the latter. The author tries to clear the political air in the introduction and set the record straight on why we have problems with Iran. He uses a direct quote from the Iranians regarding a speech from Secretary Albright who acknowledges the over 25 years of US interference in the politics and leadership of Iran starting with the shah in 1953 and ending with the aid to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq conflict in the 1980's. This of course is contrary to public posture at home that our actions are about promoting democracy abroad. It is clear that past actions against Iran were to promote US commercial, trade, and strategic defense interests at the expense of the Iranians. So that admission up front is refreshing. Many Iranians had expected help from the US, not a new imperial power to replace Britain and Russia that had dominated Iran for most of the 19th century and half of the 20th century. So the question now is simply this: can we build a new relationship, especially with that 200 history of mistrust with Russia, Britain, and America?

The book is somewhat long and can be described as comprehensive; it is well written suitable for the average reader and it is a fairly quick and light read. The pages seem to whiz by like a Jack London novel. It has about 428 pages of main text with five maps, and is followed by 60 pages of notes and a bibliography approximately 25 pages in length. It covers 13 subjects including a history of Iran, the shah, the rise of US influence in Iran, the hostage crisis, the Iran-Iraq war, and the post 1980 political developments in Iran.

The first chapter - about 30 pages long - presents a short history of Iran including the dealings between Iran and Britain and Russia. That takes the reader to approximately the year 1900 - 1914. After that there are two chapters that lead us through the events surrounding the ousting of the Iranian leader Mosaddeq by royalist troops in 1953. The author thinks that a certain myth has developed about the coup that overstate the American-British role and, in Iranian mind's at least, to exaggerate the role of the CIA. In the next 70 to 80 pages the author takes us through the 25 year reign of the shah, his spending, his use of terror, and the inequities in Iranian society which finally trigger the fall of the shah. The Iranians tend to equate America with the reign of the shah, and the failure of the US to apply human rights standards to that country while espousing them at home, especially by Carter.

The next 200 pages describe the developments related to Iran from 1980 going forward including many details on the primary Iranian political figures, the long and exhausting war with Iraq, the current and past Iranian views of the US in the 1990's, Islamic fundamentalism, supporting terrorism against mainly Israel, Iranian designs on controlling the Gulf region, suport of some Al Qaeda members by Iran, the Karine A incident, Hamas, the Geneva working group on Afghanistan, the Axis of Evil speech, Iranian nuclear weapons, etc.

Finally we have perhaps the most interesting chapter, a chapter on developing future US strategies. That is in fact the reason for the title of the book, The Persian Puzzle. Can we do anything to solve the problems short of a war? It is a puzzle that can be solved by either attacking Iran or more rationally attempting to develop a long term relationship with Iran, possibly following many paths in parallel. In the final analysis short of war it will be a decision to be made by Iran.

Whether you agree with everything the author presents in the book, or do not, one will find the book to be informative and stimulating. Easily 5 stars.

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 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 next 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 appointees? The US state and its servants judge other countries' practices, not against US practice, but against US ideals.

Thankfully, Pollack has learnt enough from the Iraq disaster to oppose the idea of invading Iran - "an invasion of Iran has nothing to recommend it." He points out that Iran has not attacked the USA directly or indirectly since 1996. Iran's population is three times Iraq's, its geographical area four times Iraq's, making invasion militarily unfeasible. He also opposes the idea of attacking Iran's nuclear facilities, saying that even if Iran had nuclear weapons (which it hasn't - see the USA's latest National Intelligence Estimate), the best policy would be containment. And an invasion would have no international support, apart from the usual dependencies.

Just because Kenneth Pollack has never been to Iran and doesn't speak Farsi, doesn't mean that he is not knowledgeable on the topic of Iran. On the contrary, his book is well worth reading. However, since his knowledge of Iran comes from positions he has held in government, including positions at the CIA and in the White House, his view is inevitably one that sees things from a US foreign policy perspective.

First of all, he seems to be a one man cheerleading team for Israel. He describes how "Jerusalem embarked on the risky process of peacemaking..." (p. 263), with no mention of how much more risky peacemaking is when you're on the vanquished side of the conflict. He explains how Rabin was "plodding along the difficult road to peace" (p. 273), how he "had been so universally respected for his courage in trying to make peace" (p. 277), and how "Peres was more devoted to the cause of peace than Rabin had been" (p. 278). Moreover, Pollack considers the massacre by the Israeli army of more than 80 innocent civilians at Qana, Lebanon as a simple "shelling incident" (p. 280). To his credit, he does mention the Sabra and Shatila massacres in Beirut that were perpetrated by Maronite Christians (pp. 201-02), however he conveniently left out the part about Israel being cooperative and complicit in the whole affair and how this responsibility was confirmed by the investigation conducted in Israel by the Kahan Commission.

Another theme in Pollack's writing about Iran is a general contempt for the Iranian people. He says in one sweeping statement, for example, that "Iranian society has a powerful tendency toward anarchy" (p. 142). Pollack suggests that maybe this could be because their country is carved up into isolated communities by the mountains, although he doesn't explain why the Swiss don't tend toward anarchy as well. He also offers the argument that the Iranian people have "resented and resisted every government they have had over the last two millennia" (p. 142). This is another rather sweeping statement that would require much evidence to substantiate. The only evidence that he bothers to marshal for this assertion is his own paltry 26-page coverage of the first 1900 of that 2000 years.

And in a final expression of arrogance (a quality not unheard of in US foreign policy making), Pollack explains how impracticable an invasion of Iran would be. He expounds on all the obvious obstacles (Iran's geographical size, its population size, its ranges of rugged mountains) and then concludes that "as American units passed through the mountains en route to Tehran and other major cities in the interior, they would be hit constantly by Iranian insurgents" (p. 382). So, imagine this for a moment. You, your family, and your ancestors share the common heritage of a civilization that stretches back several thousand years. A foreign country invades your soil and when you resist they call you the insurgent. The American Heritage Dictionary defines an insurgent as one who rises in revolt against established authority. So Pollack would evidently consider the American army to be the "established authority" immediately upon invading Iran, and by implication that resistance against this authority would be illegitimate.

At bottom, Pollack's book is written from a typical US government perspective--and it is informative in that regard. However, if you are looking for objectivity or alternative views, I'm afraid you'll have to look elsewhere.