What do you think?
Rate this book
Know Thine Enemy: A Spy's Journey Into Revolutionary Iran
As a CIA spy, Edward Shirley operated on the front lines in Europe and the Middle East ferreting out the secrets of the most vociferous enemy of the United States. But, though he studied Iran and was obsessed with it from childhood, he never actually could cross its borders. The agency would recruit only native-born Iranians to enter the country as spies. After leaving the clandestine service, Shirley had to find out what was happening on the ground in Iran, so he smuggled himself into the country inside a box in the back of a friend's truck.In narrating Know Thine Enemy, a gripping and wry account of his trip, Shirley blends a spy's cunning and nose for adventure with shrewd insights into the Iranian character. What he finds runs counter to what most American know about Iran. He depicts glamorous Westernized Iranians, disillusioned Muslim fundamentalists, and a crippled veteran of the Iran-Iraq war. Ordinary Iranians, he reports, are weary of Islamic dogma and the clerical regime and have resorted to cynicism, conspiracy, and black humor as everyday survival tactics, because the radical Islam promulgated by Khomeini and his successors has solved few of Iran's problems. Unique and engrossing, Know Thine Enemy is a vivid, firsthand portrait of the clash of Western and Muslim civilizations.
- GenresIran
256 pages, Paperback
First published May 1, 1997
2 people are currently reading
102 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
September 28, 2019
I was very surprised to find this book to be a hidden gem. “Edward Shirley” is the pseudonym of Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA officer presently best known as a neoconservative think tank analyst. Gerecht is a fluent Farsi speaker who worked on Iran affairs for the CIA. He also has a deep academic infatuation with Iran, which makes him considerably more interesting than others who’ve worn similar shoes. I strongly oppose the politics of organizations like the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), for whom Gerecht currently works. Yet I could not help liking and respecting this book; the work of an “orientalist” of the old school.
During the mid-1990s, after he’d left the CIA, Gerecht smuggled himself into Iran in an effort to finally see the country to which he’d devoted a lifetime of devoted study from afar. I felt empathy and understanding for this seemingly crazy decision. Gerecht paid an Iranian truck driver to take him into the country inside a box. A significant portion of the book is narrated from inside this box, which was apparently quite cramped and uncomfortable. I did not get the sense that Gerecht was exaggerating his bravery as he didn’t see nearly as much of Iran as he could have (he didn’t get see the most famous places) nor did he describe himself as feeling particularly courageous or intrepid during any stage of his trip. As a former CIA officer he was likely correct about the dire fate that would’ve met him if the authorities figured out who he was. When he did climb out, he was hungry to speak to ordinary Iranians living inside the country and to see a few of the shrines and landmarks of a civilization that he clearly holds in some awe. As a subtext, the book offers an amusing perspective on the hardships of travel in extremis. The benefits are often experienced only in retrospect.
Needless to say, Gerecht is a conservative, and you could also say an imperialist. In the book, he discusses the “Persian mind” and at times muses about how the country might conceivably be torn apart on ethnic lines in the interests of the United States. Despite this, believe it or not, he doesn’t hate Iranians. He doesn't even necessarily wish their country ill. To the contrary, he seems to love Iran. He credits the years he spent studying the country and conversing with its people with shaping part of his own soul. He even contemplated converting to Islam in order to indulge his intellect more deeply. Gerecht displays an intellectual curiosity sorely lacking in most contemporary imperialists, who add insult upon injury by being completely ignorant of those who they seek to conquer. As a self-described Jewish atheist, he has a unique and surprisingly moving perspective on his decades of personal experience in the Muslim world. Gerecht has the truest type of love-hate relationship with the region and its people. He eschews both the patronizing goodwill of some liberals and the boneheaded prejudices of parts of the right and expresses criticism and praise that feels more serious even if he’s still wrong about many things (his prediction of imminent clerical collapse has still not borne out 20+ years later) in his politics. If you oppose his politics you must nonetheless accept that he is a formidable adversary.
The book intersperses Gerecht’s journey into Iran with his memories of working at the CIA. He describes a once venerable institution in terminal decline; packed with officers proud of never having finished a book. People who abandon an organization always tend to feel like the Golden Age is in the pas (that's why they're leaving after all) and I have know way of objectively judging to what degree his perspective is accurate or not. Either way the book provides precious insight into the operational culture of CIA case officers. The attention to detail and tactics used to analyze, manipulate and exploit potential assets is fascinating. Every body movement, glance at a wallet or stray phrase is monitored by a good agent for possible information. Gerecht expresses his disgust at the organizational mediocrity that he encountered while working at the agency. He is an extremely intelligent person who was very interested in the country that he was assigned to — its culture, history and people — while others were focused on getting a paycheck, achieving short-term tactical goals and generally moving their career along. As someone who also holds the minority view that studying history and gaining deep knowledge of ones subject is vitally important, I understood his frustrations.
On top of all the useful knowledge and perspective, the book is somehow also touching travelogue. There are moving insights, friendships and conversations throughout. An obscure book, apparently little read, I found it to be elegantly written and a surprising page-turner. Gerecht is a loyal soldier of a powerful empire at war with Iran. Unlike the vast majority of soldiers today though, he respects his adversary, even to the point of devotion. It is a very sensitive and complex dynamic that he manages to convey poignantly. In a way it is an expression of a particularly refined form of civilization. Even as one fiercely opposed to most of Gerecht’s politics, as I am, I still have to respect that this is a work of intellect and even humanity. I would humbly submit that it is one of the best books ever written by an American about the Middle East. “Know Thine Enemy” indeed.
During the mid-1990s, after he’d left the CIA, Gerecht smuggled himself into Iran in an effort to finally see the country to which he’d devoted a lifetime of devoted study from afar. I felt empathy and understanding for this seemingly crazy decision. Gerecht paid an Iranian truck driver to take him into the country inside a box. A significant portion of the book is narrated from inside this box, which was apparently quite cramped and uncomfortable. I did not get the sense that Gerecht was exaggerating his bravery as he didn’t see nearly as much of Iran as he could have (he didn’t get see the most famous places) nor did he describe himself as feeling particularly courageous or intrepid during any stage of his trip. As a former CIA officer he was likely correct about the dire fate that would’ve met him if the authorities figured out who he was. When he did climb out, he was hungry to speak to ordinary Iranians living inside the country and to see a few of the shrines and landmarks of a civilization that he clearly holds in some awe. As a subtext, the book offers an amusing perspective on the hardships of travel in extremis. The benefits are often experienced only in retrospect.
Needless to say, Gerecht is a conservative, and you could also say an imperialist. In the book, he discusses the “Persian mind” and at times muses about how the country might conceivably be torn apart on ethnic lines in the interests of the United States. Despite this, believe it or not, he doesn’t hate Iranians. He doesn't even necessarily wish their country ill. To the contrary, he seems to love Iran. He credits the years he spent studying the country and conversing with its people with shaping part of his own soul. He even contemplated converting to Islam in order to indulge his intellect more deeply. Gerecht displays an intellectual curiosity sorely lacking in most contemporary imperialists, who add insult upon injury by being completely ignorant of those who they seek to conquer. As a self-described Jewish atheist, he has a unique and surprisingly moving perspective on his decades of personal experience in the Muslim world. Gerecht has the truest type of love-hate relationship with the region and its people. He eschews both the patronizing goodwill of some liberals and the boneheaded prejudices of parts of the right and expresses criticism and praise that feels more serious even if he’s still wrong about many things (his prediction of imminent clerical collapse has still not borne out 20+ years later) in his politics. If you oppose his politics you must nonetheless accept that he is a formidable adversary.
The book intersperses Gerecht’s journey into Iran with his memories of working at the CIA. He describes a once venerable institution in terminal decline; packed with officers proud of never having finished a book. People who abandon an organization always tend to feel like the Golden Age is in the pas (that's why they're leaving after all) and I have know way of objectively judging to what degree his perspective is accurate or not. Either way the book provides precious insight into the operational culture of CIA case officers. The attention to detail and tactics used to analyze, manipulate and exploit potential assets is fascinating. Every body movement, glance at a wallet or stray phrase is monitored by a good agent for possible information. Gerecht expresses his disgust at the organizational mediocrity that he encountered while working at the agency. He is an extremely intelligent person who was very interested in the country that he was assigned to — its culture, history and people — while others were focused on getting a paycheck, achieving short-term tactical goals and generally moving their career along. As someone who also holds the minority view that studying history and gaining deep knowledge of ones subject is vitally important, I understood his frustrations.
On top of all the useful knowledge and perspective, the book is somehow also touching travelogue. There are moving insights, friendships and conversations throughout. An obscure book, apparently little read, I found it to be elegantly written and a surprising page-turner. Gerecht is a loyal soldier of a powerful empire at war with Iran. Unlike the vast majority of soldiers today though, he respects his adversary, even to the point of devotion. It is a very sensitive and complex dynamic that he manages to convey poignantly. In a way it is an expression of a particularly refined form of civilization. Even as one fiercely opposed to most of Gerecht’s politics, as I am, I still have to respect that this is a work of intellect and even humanity. I would humbly submit that it is one of the best books ever written by an American about the Middle East. “Know Thine Enemy” indeed.
June 17, 2009
"Edward Shirley" here is in fact Reuel Marc Gerecht, who was at AEI doing analyses of Iranian and Middle eastern politics for the last few years and is now at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. It's easy to dismiss Gerecht as one more "neo-con" think-tank type, but in point of fact he's been notable for producing insightful work on Iranian affairs--- and his work is worth reading, even if he keeps suspect company.
"Know Thine Enemy" is a fascinating account of Gerecht's trip inside Iran in the mid-1990s. A former CIA Iran analyst and fluent Farsi-speaker, Gerecht decided after leaving CIA that since he'd never been into the country he'd studied at university and focused on as a CIA analyst, it was time to actually go to Tehran. His trip was undercover and certainly dangerous enough--- he paid border smugglers to get him into the country with fake ID, risking arrest as a spy ---and Gerecht writes about a country exhausted by a decade of war with Iraq and where revolutionary fervor is failing. He's sensitive to Iranian national pride and deep religious belief, and never sees the people he meets and stays with as "the enemy" or as cardboard Shi'a fanatics.
This is an odd book--- about one man's brief trip. But it's very much worth reading, for his account of Iranian as its revolutionary era "normalised" in the 1990s, and for his critiques both of the Islamic Republic and his own former employers at Langley. Recommended for anyone interested either in the Islamic Republic or how intelligence work is done.
"Know Thine Enemy" is a fascinating account of Gerecht's trip inside Iran in the mid-1990s. A former CIA Iran analyst and fluent Farsi-speaker, Gerecht decided after leaving CIA that since he'd never been into the country he'd studied at university and focused on as a CIA analyst, it was time to actually go to Tehran. His trip was undercover and certainly dangerous enough--- he paid border smugglers to get him into the country with fake ID, risking arrest as a spy ---and Gerecht writes about a country exhausted by a decade of war with Iraq and where revolutionary fervor is failing. He's sensitive to Iranian national pride and deep religious belief, and never sees the people he meets and stays with as "the enemy" or as cardboard Shi'a fanatics.
This is an odd book--- about one man's brief trip. But it's very much worth reading, for his account of Iranian as its revolutionary era "normalised" in the 1990s, and for his critiques both of the Islamic Republic and his own former employers at Langley. Recommended for anyone interested either in the Islamic Republic or how intelligence work is done.
Read
February 17, 2021no
July 10, 2015
Know Thine Enemy is really three books in one, and all of them mis-titled.
The 'present' of the book is the mid-90s, as Shirley (psuedonym of Reuel Marc Gerecht, former CIA case officer specializing in the Middle East and presently a moderately hawkish DC policy type) goes on a long dreamed of trip into Iran. I can only describe this as the worst idea ever, as it involves smuggling himself over the border in an excruciatingly small hidden compartment in a truck. Shirley will get to see the land-at night, illuminated by headlights, a few cement cities much like any other in West Asia, truckstop tearooms, small apartments, one trip to the bazaar, and a few ancient tombs and citadels. The penalty for being discovered by a wandering patrol of the Revolutionary Guard would be horrific, but Iran is far from an Iron Curtain police state, and Shirley makes it in and out safely--obviously, or else this would be a very different book.
The second part is a kind of anthropological study of the Iranian national character, and the progress of the Islamic Revolution. Shirley describes himself as someone who fell in love with Persia in college, his love comes through in his description of the language, the poetry, and the history of Iran. This, however, is not a textbook and the cultural study is somewhat haphazard and disorganized. Summing up an entire nation is an exercise in futile generalizations, although it is probably fair to say that though the Iranians may chant "Death to America" sincerely, it is not the only thing that they believe about America, and that Persian culture is shot through with contradictions, sudden reversals of Good and Evil, and conspiracy theories. The Iranians are, in Shirley's estimation, a people with martyrdom in their blood. They have been betrayed by their rulers for centuries: Ottoman and British colonial powers, the corruption and brutality of the Shah, the senseless bloodshed of the revolution and the Iran-Iraq War. They love Islam, they hate the Mullahs. They despise the Shah, and want him restored. They are more afraid of American intervention than anything else, and hope America will save them. Do not enter the Middle East expecting simple answers.
The third, best, and sadly briefest parts of the book are when Shirley talks about his career as a spy and gripes about the CIA. Some parts of it are as expected, bemoaning the rise of mediocre bureaucrats instead of culturally sensitive field officers. Some of it is quite insightful, like when Shirley dissects his own thought process on encountering an Iranian businessman in a consulate in Berlin, and goes about probing his opinions as a prelude to recruiting him as an agent.
This book is more than the sum of its parts, but the sum depends on how much you believe the Iran soul can be "known", and whether that knowledge is still relevant. I'd say no, and there's just too much filler about being in that damn coffin in the truck for me to recommend this book.
The 'present' of the book is the mid-90s, as Shirley (psuedonym of Reuel Marc Gerecht, former CIA case officer specializing in the Middle East and presently a moderately hawkish DC policy type) goes on a long dreamed of trip into Iran. I can only describe this as the worst idea ever, as it involves smuggling himself over the border in an excruciatingly small hidden compartment in a truck. Shirley will get to see the land-at night, illuminated by headlights, a few cement cities much like any other in West Asia, truckstop tearooms, small apartments, one trip to the bazaar, and a few ancient tombs and citadels. The penalty for being discovered by a wandering patrol of the Revolutionary Guard would be horrific, but Iran is far from an Iron Curtain police state, and Shirley makes it in and out safely--obviously, or else this would be a very different book.
The second part is a kind of anthropological study of the Iranian national character, and the progress of the Islamic Revolution. Shirley describes himself as someone who fell in love with Persia in college, his love comes through in his description of the language, the poetry, and the history of Iran. This, however, is not a textbook and the cultural study is somewhat haphazard and disorganized. Summing up an entire nation is an exercise in futile generalizations, although it is probably fair to say that though the Iranians may chant "Death to America" sincerely, it is not the only thing that they believe about America, and that Persian culture is shot through with contradictions, sudden reversals of Good and Evil, and conspiracy theories. The Iranians are, in Shirley's estimation, a people with martyrdom in their blood. They have been betrayed by their rulers for centuries: Ottoman and British colonial powers, the corruption and brutality of the Shah, the senseless bloodshed of the revolution and the Iran-Iraq War. They love Islam, they hate the Mullahs. They despise the Shah, and want him restored. They are more afraid of American intervention than anything else, and hope America will save them. Do not enter the Middle East expecting simple answers.
The third, best, and sadly briefest parts of the book are when Shirley talks about his career as a spy and gripes about the CIA. Some parts of it are as expected, bemoaning the rise of mediocre bureaucrats instead of culturally sensitive field officers. Some of it is quite insightful, like when Shirley dissects his own thought process on encountering an Iranian businessman in a consulate in Berlin, and goes about probing his opinions as a prelude to recruiting him as an agent.
This book is more than the sum of its parts, but the sum depends on how much you believe the Iran soul can be "known", and whether that knowledge is still relevant. I'd say no, and there's just too much filler about being in that damn coffin in the truck for me to recommend this book.
August 1, 2009
"Know Thine Enemy: A Spy's Journey Into Revolutionary Iran" has a misleading subtitle. It really should be called "A Former Spy's Journey Into Post-Revolutionary Iran." That criticism aside, however, this fictionalized account of former CIA case officer Reuel Marc Gerecht's (writing under the pen name Edward Shirley) real-life travel in Iran is a very good book. I can't think of other authors, aside from Robert Kaplan, who deftly weave history and international relations (like the Safavid dynasty's legacy to the modern Middle East) as well as Gerecht does here.
Replete with history, criticism of the CIA, and musings on espionage, Gerecht takes the reader from the Turkish border all the way to Tehran. Although the book is more of a travelogue than a plot-driven story, Gerecht manages to keep the reader entertained with a sharp writing style and highly-informed narrative. Among the best parts of the book are Gerecht's observations on his former profession and the peculiar task for him to use his knowledge of a country he loves to gets its people to betray their government.
Recommended.
Replete with history, criticism of the CIA, and musings on espionage, Gerecht takes the reader from the Turkish border all the way to Tehran. Although the book is more of a travelogue than a plot-driven story, Gerecht manages to keep the reader entertained with a sharp writing style and highly-informed narrative. Among the best parts of the book are Gerecht's observations on his former profession and the peculiar task for him to use his knowledge of a country he loves to gets its people to betray their government.
Recommended.
Want to read
February 8, 2008this looks like an interesting one... (Amazon lets you look inside the book at random segments)
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews