Showing results by author "Ray Takeyh" in All Categories

 Offering a new view of one of America's most important, infamously strained, and widely misunderstood relationships of the postwar era, this book tells the history of America and Iran from the time the last shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, was placed on the throne in 1941 to the 1979 revolution that brought the present Islamist government to power.

The nuclear deal that the United States and five other great powers signed with Iran in July 2015 is the final product of a decade-long effort at arms control. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action ranks as one of the most deficient arms control agreements in history. But Barack Obama has pledged to spend the remainder of his tenure fending off congressional pressure to adjust its terms. An even larger issue is Washington’s lack of a comprehensive Iran policy.

For over a quarter century, Iran has been one of America's chief nemeses. Ever since Ayatollah Khomeini overthrew the Shah in 1979, the relationship between the two nations has been antagonistic: revolutionary guards chanting against the Great Satan, Bush fulminating against the Axis of Evil, Iranian support for Hezbollah, and President Ahmadinejad blaming the U.S. for the world's ills.

Conventional wisdom about the 1953 coup in Iran rests on the myth that the CIA toppled the country's democratically elected prime minister. In reality, the coup was primarily a domestic Iranian affair, and the CIA's impact was ultimately insignificant.