All The Shah's Men

The point of this book is to question a U.S. foreign policy that took shape in the 1950's, one of covert and overt intervention and interference in the political processes of other sovereign nations. In the case of the CIA-led coup against Mohammed Mossadegh, the democratically-elected secular, moderate prime minister of Iran who believed in freedom of the press, freedom of religion, and freedom of assembly, U.S. intervention in 1953 led to the revolution in 1978-79 which put the Ayatollah Khomeini in power. It is hard to argue otherwise, no matter your political leanings, especially since the research in the book relies as heavily on the testimony of Americans and Britons who still believe it was the right thing to do as it does on those who believe otherwise.

The book's author draws a straight line between the 1953 coup and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and while it is a simplistic argument at best, it is again difficult to refute it entirely. Iran was at the time the most fully-developed democracy in the Middle East and may or may not have been in danger of becoming communist. What we are trying to accomplish in Iraq right now was reality in Iran in the early 1950's. But it doesn't matter now. What matters is that we learn from it, and understand how our interventions of the 1950's colors our relations with nations in the Middle East today. But we (meaning our politicians and military) probably won't.