America And Iran: A History: 1720 To The Present, John Ghazvinian

One of the more interesting insights to come from this wonderful book is that for the vast majority of the history of interaction between Iran and the United States, the two nations got along famously well. It is hard for those of us who were born in the aftermath of the Iranian Revolution to fully understand this, but for more than 300 years of interaction, Iran and the United States both got along, even before the two nations had frequent intercourse and trade with each other. American newspapers showed concern about the fate of the Safavid Empire when it was attacked by Afghan rulers, while Iranians viewed the United States as a potential counterweight to the threatening empires of Russia and Great Britain, who exploited the Qajar dynasty for land and corrupt profiteering. It is only in the aftermath of World War II where the United States and Iran seem to have so disastrously misunderstood each other to the point where for more than 40 years there have been no official relations between the two countries and seemingly little hope that the two nations, both so alike in their prickly and proud nature and their refusal to let others dictate how it is that they shall behave as nations and cultures, will be able to come to terms and relate to each other again as positively as they did for so long. Yet although this book mostly dwells on the sad history of the relationship between America and Iran after the 1970s, the book ends with hope that the two nations will be able to get along with each other once again.

This book is a sizable one, and its scope is far wider than any book I have yet to read on the subject. This book is more than 500 pages of text and it is divided into four parts that express a different season in the relationship between the United States and Iran. The book begins with an introduction, and then looks at the dawning of relationship between the two nations (I), with initial beliefs that Iran was east of Eden and a biblical civilization (1), efforts to provide medical care and education (2) as preparatory to conversion, amateurs (3) and professionals in diplomacy (4), as well as the interaction between war and peace in the fate of Iran and America’s standing up for Iranian self-determination (6). The summer (II) of the relationship in the early-to-mid-1900s is then explored, with chapters on the sordid side of the relationship between Iran and the United States (7), the rise of the Pahlavi dynasty (8), the rising American presence in Iran in World War II and the Tehran Spring (9, 10), as well as Iranian hopes that the United States would serve as a good example for Iranian self-determination (12) up to the fateful year of 1953 (13). The peak of the relationship between the Shah and the United States in the face of rising Iranian discontent makes up the autumn of the relationship (III), with chapters about the Shah’s inability to deal with criticism from advisers (14), the so-called “White Revolution” (15), the exile of Khomeini (16), as well as the decline (17), and fall (18) of the Shah’s regime in the 1970’s. The last part of the book, which takes up a substantial portion of the material, is made up of the present winter that has existed between the United States and Iran, starting in 1979 (19), dealing with the Iran-Iraq War (20), and numerous efforts to restart-the relationship between the two nations that have ended in failure (21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26). The epilogue encourages a summit meeting where the two nations’ leaders can be at leisure to come to understand each other and build goodwill, the only thing that has yet to be tried in the post-1979 world. The author expresses hope that this would work out. The book then ends with acknowledgments, archival sources, notes, and an index.

Despite the fact that this book, like every book written about the relationship between Iran and the United States, focuses on the more recent and better documented recent past, the author deserves considerable praise for his uncovering within colonial newspapers and in missionary reports the early and enduring interest that Americans had in Persia, whether it was in viewing Persia as a glorious civilization with a long and interesting history, or as a place where missionary work with the local Assyrian population around Lake Urmia was possible for a long time, or whether it was in Persia seeing in America a nation that seemed to want nothing from them but was happy to send ambassadors to them without making unreasonable demands on them the way that European powers did, even while denying their ability to seek compensation for the losses to the country and its people as a neutral country during World War I, when millions of Persians died due to war-induced famine. Over and over again, the author shows a tone of sadness, even perhaps of resignation, when dealing with the frustrations of the lack of understanding between the Iranian and American governments during the period after 1979. It is as if the two nations have decided to maintain the worst view of the other and been unable to see the similarities that drive the two nations to feel themselves to be so isolated in a world without having a lot of genuine friends, an insecurity that, in this case, has made two nations who could easily be friends into deep enemies.