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The Persian Puzzle: The Conflict Between Iran and America |
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reviewed by Tugba Ozden |
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Author: Kenneth M. Pollack |
ISBN:
0812973364 |
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Publisher:
Random House |
Page:
576 |
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Type:
Paperback |
Price:
$ 17.00 |
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Review: |
Iran, constituting one of the top global-agenda items of both the Middle East region and the globe; and being one of the most deep and well rooted states and civilizations of the world, can only be elaborated in a fine blend of history and political scrutiny. Iran, besides own intrinsic perplexing history, has also developed pretty undulant relations with the United States. While Americans are mostly recalling Iranians with the hostage crisis and the Islamic Revolution; Iranians still muse over America with Operation Ajax of 1953, or their alliance with Saddam in Eight-Years-War.
Kenneth M. Pollack, in his book The Persian Puzzle, is providing this mélange to shed some light on hectic relations of America and Iran by appending his insider’s -Kenneth Pollack served in National Security Council and CIA as Persian Gulf military analyst- sight. Now he is the Director of Research, Saban Center for Middle East Policy at Brookings Institute. He is also the author of the The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq.
Even though the mentioned book is published in 2004, since the US-Iran Relations are in the focus of the world, keeps popularity and actuality. The Persian Puzzle is composed of 13 chapters, where initially a historical milieu is provided commencing from the ancient epoch to contemporary times. In this regard, Pollack’s Persian Puzzle can be compared to Stephen Kinzer’s All the Shah’s Men, Mark J. Gasiorowski’s Musaddiq and the Struggle for Power in Iran, and Nikki Keddie’s Modern Iran, where in all the mentioned scripts political analysis coalesce the history scenery and present a complete picture. Whilst documentation, we witness Pollack using a huge scale of bibliography from government documents to books, articles in addition to various meeting and symposium reports, Ph.D. Dissertations et cetera. However, Pollack’s sources are one sided, since the only sources from Iran are those that are ready translated, but we do not witness any government documents or any archival appraisals from Iran; but the only Persian sources are those translated are. Still, The Persian Puzzle is a useful script for research purposes.
Following the depiction of the ancient history till Pahlavi era, he dedicated a chapter for Reza Shah, his early contacts with the US, modernization process and his fall to portray the atmosphere in Iran. Pollack, before bestowing a vision for the prospective Iran-American relations, gives a detailed narrative and account of the past relations, where he tries to keep his objectivity and to be fair, by being neither offensive nor defensive. In the third chapter, namely “The Ugly Americans”, the author does not hesitate to criticize American administration for the “good intentions but mixed implementation” (p.43) besides criticizing leading figures as Arthur Millspaugh, who “contributed to the unfavorable impression of American s left in the minds of many Iranians” (p.42) in addition to Muhammed Mosaddeq who “misjudged the Americans” (p.64).
From the last Shah to the Islamic revolution, seizure of the Tehran Embassy, Iran-Iraq War, Salman Rushdie affair, the Gulf War, K. Pollack brings the relations, mainly within the frame of nuclear challenge, under Bush Administration, in chapter 12, “Coming Full Circle” and makes foreign policy suggestions in addition to assessments in the last chapter “Toward a New Iran Policy”. Pollack considers devising a solution to be “complicated and painful” (p.375). He still, strictly advises American administration to put off the passive approach. He assesses the strategy pursued in Iraq, or as Israel realized in 1981 by bombing Osirak, but he is not in favor of this strategy due to the locations of the plants To bring some realistic outcomes by eliminating the military option, he offers the triple track option, where the first track is to open the Grand Bargain “to convince the Iranians to disband their nuclear program and end their support for terrorism” (p.401); the second track is actually a European pattern; a true carrot-and-stick approach , where the model is to persuade Europe and Japan besides Russia and China for sanctions and rewarding the progressive actions in nuclear and terrorism issues. The third track is preparing for a new containment regime, which can be implied in case the first two tracks fails.
Pollack calls the nuclear Iran problem to be the “problem from Hell” (p. 422). He underlines the fallacious hopes to believe that a different government in Tehran to discontinue the nuclear program or regime change in Tehran; by assessing the structure of Iran, he claims the regime change to happen by own volition. One other element of the Persian puzzle is the American mistakes half a century ago, that today constructs the psychological and political taboos, exaggerated by the Iranian imagination. One further element can be considered by Pollack as; United States, being the principal benefactor of the current international order, must lead multilateral efforts to address; which is complicated as well. The messages, solution proposals are clear, feasible, to the point and built on reliable documents.
Note: This book review was previously published in the Review of International Law and Politics.
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about book: |
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. |
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