All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror

Rating:
Summary: The Evolution of Persia into Modern Day Iran
Review: This book gives a fascinating history of Iran in the early to middle 20th century. It made the subsequent modern history of Iran much clearer for me, especially the embassy hostage incident and the anger at the US/CIA as an imperialist "Great Satan". My only quarrel with the book is that it would have been better if it were organized on a more linear timeline, rather than jumping forward and backward in time. Still, a very informative and engaging book to read. Also check out the author's "Crescent and Star: Turkey Between Two Worlds" and Robin Wright's "The Last Great Revolution : Turmoil and Transformation in Iran".

Rating:
Summary: a self-contradictory bone to pick
Review: Definitely Kinzer sides heavily with Mossadegh, depicting him almost as a Persian Thomas Jefferson. But, I note with approval, he makes no attempt to hide this.

I was bothered, however, by a subtle yet fatal contradiction in Kinzer's position, although I'm not sure if I can put it into words.

Throughout the book, Kinzer accuses the West of having had no respect for Iran -- for its culture, values, history, etc. Yet the nature of his argument -- and the strength of his scarcely-concealed moral outrage -- is predicated precisely on his having assumed that these same values are patently inferior, and that ours are naturally superior. I'll try to explain . . .

If one asserts, as Kinzer plainly does, that Britain and the CIA robbed Iran of a democratic, constitutional society by overthrowing Mossadegh, one is, knowingly or otherwise, imposing one's own values on a foreign culture; because, as Kinzer's praise of Mossadegh forces him to make clear, Iran itself (and certainly Islam) had no indigenous tradition of a democratic, constitutional society, whatever other cultural glories may have been theirs.

In other words, the intolerant government that now strangles Iran rings far truer to its character and history than did the consensual, rule-of-law-style government Mossadegh was building. Seen in this light, heck, the abusive Western petroleum companies actually did the country a favor by (unintentionally) bringing about a government far more representative of the ethos and "values" of the people. That these same values strike us as abhorrent is, strictly speaking, beside the point.

To clarify: taking Kinzer's cultural stance to its logical conclusion, one must view the democratic innovations of Mossadegh as an incongruous blip and conclude that it was only right that this aberration was overthrown and replaced with a government more squarely in consonance with the deepest convictions and traditions of the Persian people: i.e., a totalitarian religious state with scant recognition of human rights. That's the way they've lived for thousands of years, and that's obviously what the majority wanted in 1979.

Yes, it makes little sense to suggest that the Iranians are messing everything up and that they need to be more like us, while at the same time maintaining that such a culture of intolerance and absolutism is somehow sacrosanct and that the West should not presume to tamper with it. One cannot simultaneously hold both positions.

This, at any rate, is just a sketch of the unexamined silliness that underpins Kinzer's stance. You get the idea.

In other matters . . .

There's a reviewer elsewhere who says that if you just want to get the drift of what happened, all you need to do is to read the first three chapters, and the last one. That reviewer certainly hit the nail on the head. Everything that happens between these chapters is drama: well-crafted, certainly, but not vital. (The next couple of chapters, for example, treat of classical Persian history -- something which, at first blush, is unlikely to strike the reader as germane.)

If you only read those few chapters, however, you'll be robbing yourself of much of the disturbing but mesmerizing story of Kermit Roosevelt, the Nostromo par excellence who was determined to get the job done at any cost.

Other reviewers have asserted that the book was mistitled, surmising that perhaps this was deliberate on the publisher's part: a cynical ploy to sell more copies, given that Kinzer himself never even begins to make the claim that Mossadegh's overthrow is the "root" of contemporary Middle Eastern terrorism. (I do not even recall Palestine being mentioned.) Hence I would agree that the title is inaccurate, if not misleading.

These misgivings aside, Kinzer's book is well-written and a swift read.

Rating:
Summary: British intransigence, American obtuseness
Review: It is impossible to read this book without feeling sympathy for the Iranians and their leader, Mossadegh Mohammad, for whom Stephen Kinzer has special affection, and without developing a sense of distaste first at the British, and then at their accomplices, the Americans. All the same, it is also impossible not to cast a doubt on the book's main conclusion-that the US-led coup in Iran in 1953 lies at the root of Middle East terror.

Stephen Kinzer, a veteran reporter for the New York Times, is no stranger to American coups, having contributed to the writing of the history of the CIA coup in Guatemala in 1954. In "All the Shah's Men," Mr. Kinzer chronicles another coup, one that preceded Guatemala and laid the foundation for America's thinking that coups can be a useful and effective tool of foreign policy.

The book narrates the history of foreign involvement in Iran that culminated in the toppling of Mossadegh Mohammad and the re-coronation of Reza Shah as Iran's leader. Mr. Kinzer goes back centuries to choreograph the details of foreign involvement in Iranian politics, and pays particular attention to the last century and a half: in 1872, for example, Nasir al-Din Shah offered a most sweeping concession to Baron Julius de Reuter to, among others, exploit Iran's natural resources, a privilege revoked a year later. After that came other concessions, extended and then revoked, agreed and then renegotiated, on oil and other business.

What made the landscape explosive was the resignation, in 1941, of Reza Shah, Iran's king, and the subsequent emergence of Mossadegh, and a person who rested much of his political fortune on the nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Corporation (in 1951). His passionate belief that his country had been exploited by the British, and his unwillingness to compromise, coupled with the intransigence of the British created a perfect setting for confrontation.

Perfect, yes. But not inevitable. For that, one has to credit the re-election of Winston Churchill, an ardent Empire enthusiast, who was much keener on resolving the dispute between Iran and the AIOC, by force if necessary, than was his predecessor. Equally important was the election of Dwight Eisenhower, who replaced the skeptical and sympathetic to Iran Harry Truman, and adopted a more assertive pro-British line (courtesy of the Dulles brothers, Allen and John Foster, who ran the CIA and State Department, and who feared Iran might turn communist).

The narrative is eloquent, with enough attention on detail as to offer a vivid account of what happened and why. Mr. Kinzer has an eye for drama, building up the sequence of events with a novel-like quality (including the details of the coup, and Mossadegh's visit to the USA and UN). No doubt, the reader will feel rather conversant on the details of the foreign involvement in Iran leading up to the 1953 coup.

What is less obvious, however, is Mr. Kinzer grand conclusion: "It is not far-fetched," he writes, "to draw a line from Operation Ajax [the coup codename] through the Shah's repressive regime and the Islamic Revolution to the fireballs that engulfed the World Trade Center in New York." As a history book, "All the Shah's" has many attractions; and, no doubt, there are lessons in 1953 to be learned today about meddling in other countries' businesses. But to link the 1953 with September 11 feels more like authoring overstretched, and should be best left at that.