Iran and the United States: A Cold War Case Study

by Richard W. Cottam

Richard Cottam served in the U.S. embassy in Tehran from 1956 to 1958 and was consulted by the Department of State during the 1979 hostage crisis. This book draws upon his expert personal knowledge of Iranian politics to describe the spiraling decline of U.S.-Iranian relations since the cold war and the political consequences of those years U.S. policy, he argues, is flawed by ignorance, inertia, the tenacity of a cold war mentality, a quixotic tilt toward Iraq, and the blatant inconsistency of the Reagan administration's arms-for-hostages scheme that produced the Iran-contra scandal.

Genres: Iran, History

298 pages, Paperback

Published June 30, 1988

Reviews

[Lizzie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rich with insight into Iranian domestic politics, this book traces early U.S. interests in Iran dating back to the post-WWI era, the increasing substitution of U.S. influence for British in Iran post-WWII, U.S. involvement in the Anglo-Persian (Iranian) dispute and plunge into regime change with the removal of Mossadegh, the consolidation of the Shah as a major pillar of the United States' regional containment strategy against the USSR, sociopolitical change through the 1960s and 1970s within Iran that hollowed out the Shah's domestic base, the Carter administration's mixed signals leading up to and then confused response to the 1978-79 revolution, the hostage crisis, and a brief foray into the relationship during the early Reagan years. This is a must for anyone interested in understanding, as Amb. Limbert put it in his Negotiating with Iran: Wrestling the Ghosts of History, the ghosts of history that haunt U.S.-Iranian relations.

[Paul Farahvar · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wish our administration knew the history of the country before they started this "excursion". Read this book if you are curious.