Persian Puzzle

Persian Puzzle
By Kenneth Pollack


I picked this book up chiefly because of recent news in Iran and secondarily because of an Iranian friend I had in New York. He often spoke of the rich Persian culture and spoke Farsi with his children. I have an Iranian tapestry in my hallway and eat Amir’s pistachios from Iran when I get them. True enough you read early on in the book about Darius, Xerxus, and Cyrus with an emphasis on Cyrus’ conquering of Babylon. In this conquest Cyrus frees the Jews and returns them to their homeland, Palestine. This point I find interesting as the primer landmark contradiction in the Persian/Iranian history; a history that only evolved to the name Iran at the insistence of Reza Shah Pahlavi in the 1920’s. This is a point in history that flies in the face of the current Iranian theocracy and supports one of the tenants of American sanctions on Iran for their sponsored terrorism, anti-peace in the Middle East and the “destruction” of Israel.

Pollack prepares a backdrop for which he lays room for the reader to contemplate many moral questions while reading the book. I found it interesting to read that Persia over history is a land fragmented by mountains and deserts with no significant navigatable rivers. Holding a band of people together to be the world’s first superpower was no small feat. A feat that today’s Iranians are still so proud of that it permeates in their civil consciousness. I saw this in my friends Amir and Mondona, and better appreciate this now.

Oddly enough the Arabian conquest brought Islam to Persia a religion that over shadowed Zoroastrianism and threw Persia into a state of civil unrest and contradiction ever since. The one hundred year period prior to our current political situation (1979 to present) is a story of repressive dictatorships over a new sovereign state. The first Shah who regained his family’s through a coup and internal unrest saw himself much in the liking to Mussolini, and Franco. Pollack associates this mentality to Kadafi, Arafat, and a few of Egypt’s recent leaders. Notice he separates these inept leaders from the terrorist of Hitler, Stalin and Hussein. The important similarity to all was while encumbered with internal instability in conjunction with a fear of foreign domination; these recent rulers absconded power and ruled their people poorly.

The irony of Iranian leadership of the 19th and 20th centuries is similar to that of Poland. There were regions of people with a desire to lead themselves but displayed no proven capability to do so. Reza Shah Pahlavi was only an example of a line of leaders who lived in fear of Russia and Great Britain. The imposition of either of two foreign powers was self-inflicted to a certain degree. Persia’s fear of Russia gave reason to draw Great Britain into their sphere of influence, yet it was Great Britain with the dominant tools to lead. With the imbalance in skills as they were, Great Britain took advantage of all business activity. The discovery of oil exacerbated the imbalance. The weak leaders whether the Shah or Prime Minister Mosaddeq, could not manage the divergent demands on internal policy.

After World War II Iran began to invite the Unites States in to counter balance their triad of problematic and conflicting issues. Like all poor leaders their focus on military led themselves to financial ruin on every other front. It is important to have read that the United States were reluctant participants brought in at the invitation of Iran, no matter what was perceived through the fog of the coups for a leader. Unfortunately with our preoccupation with the spread of Communism at the time, no matter who was in the White House, we did not live up to the expectations of Iran’s leaders or their people. Later our pre-occupation with Viet Nam caused the Johnson administration to lose sight of the call for internal reform that was heard and revered by the Kennedy administration.

The CIA participation in the stacked 1953 election (now called a coup by Iran and somehow tolerated by the United States) between Pahlavi and Mosaddeq gave all the justifiable appearances of our meddling in another countries affairs. And it was justified, a mistake by the Eisenhower administration. What is important to know says Pollack is our agenda was not about oil. The agenda was to bring someone into power that would stand up to the Soviets, which paradoxically was indeed an agenda of the Iranian people. To accuse the USA of propping up a puppet regime is somewhat misguided according to Pollack. The Shah was dependant on the United States initially for economic reasons and we supplied ample aid. Unfortunately, this money was redirected to the military while his people were oppressed. Over time the Shah thumbed his nose up to American calls for human rights. The Shahs new found oil wealth, thanks to American intervention over the British in behalf of Iran, allowed him this option and left American influence neutered. By the time Carter became aware and made a call for human rights, it was too late.

I found it very interesting that even Pollack describes the events of 1953 as a CIA directed stacked election and then goes on later in his book to name that event as a coup. In Pollack’s defense, after reading the events surrounding every election of the 20th century, one would conclude that the words election and coup in Iran are synonymous.
It is important to appreciate why Iran, the theocratic government hates the United States, and why Iran conducts its foreign affairs as though it can thumb its nose at the United States to the extent that it can wage terrorist war against us. With a xenophobic persona caused by fear of both the USSR and Britain, Iran’s request to the United o mediate and or counteract the situation was not executed with clarity. With a revolving door in leadership every four years in the White House, a consistent policy and or named responsible person could not be defined. During pre and near post WWII the revolving door in Iran was even less clear. Elections in Iran through this same period were closely parallel to coups. Upon this canvas, one can easily visualize a people’s propensity to take aim at the tallest participant as it stands above the smoke.

Once we got on that slippery slope the only course was and is down. While it was common practice to offer a choice of two evils and prompting voter disenfranchisement to the extent that the candidates would get assainated the CIA wrongly engaged in this in 1953. What the CIA did was bombard the Iranian people with election propaganda to get the Shah elected. THAT’S IT!!!. According to the author. After this election/coup, from Eisenhower through Ford, the United States largely turned a blind eye to the Shah’s shenanigans; largely due to our focus on anti communism threats elsewhere in the world. The Iranian people felt betrayed in two ways. First we did not give them the attention they asked for. Second, the Shah on his own accord and with no pressure from the United States oppressed his people. Not speaking out on human rights violations committed by the Shah was a slap in their face.

Iran has learned through the hostage taking in 1979 and through the 1980s that they could influence policy in America. Khomeni realized that his capital in the Embassy hostages was already spent. But he despised Carter for his double talk. Carter spoke strongly against human rights violations around the world and did nothing in Iran. When he allowed the Shah into the US for surgery it was an insult to Iran. Carter’s response incorporated a fundamental mistake in making it clear that the hostages were to come back alive, this is despite that every hostage taken swore an oath that the Unites States interests came first. (Implying first before their own lives). Khomeni leveraged this in negotiations and sucked everything he could out of the US and embarrassed us publicly with his booty. The only thing Reagan did to free the hostages was get sworn in to office. The very minute this took place the hostages were set free. Thus the author puts forth the theory that an Iran got even for what the CIA did in 1953. Khomeni learned another lesson, that the United States was weak and its people did not have the stomach for conflict. He took Reagan to task by taking hostages in Lebanon. While Reagan did not make the same mistake as Carter he made a different one. He negotiated with terrorist in the Iran Contra fiasco. It was not until 1991 that all the hostages were set free.

Reagan ’s continued reluctance to engage directly in the Iran Iraq war demonstrated to Iran American weakness or intolerance to war. It was clearly stated that Iran had intentions to march through Iraq and straight to Israel. Khomeni’s agenda was an Islamic World. Reagan’s agenda was a continued resistance through the support of other armies where American interests were involved. Our eventual involvement through our Naval escorts of Kuwaiti ships did nothing to show American strength and everything to show a continued American betrayal. Through the Clinton administration America’s continuance to tolerate terrorist activity emboldened Hezbollah and al Queida. Theocracy leadership with a whip to its people and a stick to its neighbors internationally became a theme.

With regard to Pollack’s assessments of all the administrations foreign policy, he found something to criticize in every administration with exception to Kennedy the G.H. Bush. I found it interesting that a consistent theme of criticism of both Carter and Reagan was not being firm enough with Iran over terrorism, Pollack only mentions the Bahran Towers, and gives plausible argument for the Clinton Administration not taking a firm hand against Iran. His argument being that after full disclosure from Saudi Arabia, that Iran organized the assault, a new Khatami government was in power. This contradicts the Madeline Albrights assessment that un-elected hands controlled Iran. Pollack later recommends that any act of terrorism would be responded to with force regardless of regime change, so he leaves the reader somewhat confused. Additionally the other incidents of terrorism against the United States during the Clinton administration were not addressed to the same degree as both Carter and Reagan. This in itself is a puzzle within a puzzle. Pollack paints a picture where Iran became use to American weakness in the face of terrorism, but asserts that Iran was not specifically involved, and then claims Iran spreads terrorism; a foggy area for this expert author.

The book title becomes relevant in describing Iran. It is a country conflicted by its leadership that does not appear to represent the voice of its people. In 1997, with 91% of the people voting, more that 70% of the vote was in favor of reform from the “hardline” mullahs, the Madeline Albright speech of 1999 to Iran in an effort for rapprochement contained two critical words, “un-elected hands”. Every other word in the speech was aimed at a rapprochement of the two countries. While the elected Khatami government did take notice of those two words, they were willing to overlook them. Kahamen’i, the new un-elected Supreme Leader assumed control in delivering a very negative reply to the Clinton administration. To quote Pollack “Indeed it is unfortunate that this was all that came from it, but by trying so hard to start a process of rapprochement with the Khatami government, the Clinton administration gave the George W Bush administration the perfect argument to demand a harder line on Iran from America’s allies.”

If Clinton’s stick were equal in size to his carrot, would he have handed George W. Bush a different set of cards? In fact Pollack was equally generous to G.W. Bush. He speaks of the strategies between Clinton and Bush as complementary being that Iran always took the carrot and left the United States with nothing but the stick, a stick that for many reasons detailed in the book can be used for nothing but waving in the air. Pollack suggest that Clinton handed Bush the stick. Pollack reiterates that over the course of our relationship with Iran, and particularly in the last 25 years, their negotiating style called for the United States to put all concessions on the table for which they take them and leave. However Pollack demonstrates many cases where Iran does respond to the stick.

In Pollack’s closing chapters he describes a three-part strategy to become good neighbors with Iran. He claims that Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons is the number one concern; because if successful Iran’s complete persona of xenophobia changes. (a root cause resolution dynamic not explored universally by the author) The first is through a “Grand Bargain” whereby each side lay down their concessions, detailed in the book. The second is through international diplomacy where all nations of the world lay out a new world protocol among nations, detailed in the book. And the third part being military might. Because this is three-part strategy is introduced only after Pollack makes a case for the failure of each strategy independently, you the reader must pay close attention to the intricate relations between all three and the “trip wires” that would transition from one policy to another. In the end you begin to see the edges of the Persian Puzzle. You may even have your colored pieces in their proper piles, but there is no way the puzzle get completed in this book. You also begin to appreciate a requirement for a tremendous staff in our State Department to piece this all together. In retrospect I found the details and criticism in the early going of the book to be much sharper. There is enough history provided to appreciate the general feeling of the common man that Iran holds anxieties towards America. There is also enough history provided to be sure that Iran has much to be responsible for in their anxiety about many things internally and externally, including The West. This gives true meaning to the saying only history will tell. I can only hope that Pollack will be around in 50 years so that at age 99 I will read his sequel.





Epilogue: I am always taken back by: those in America that unilaterally condemns “THIS ADMINISTRATION”; when I contrast it to the following quote in the book by Ayatollah Khomeni upon burying two prostitutes up to their chest and had them stoned to death by the public. Bear in mind there was not trial. He said, “ Criminals should not be tried. The trial of a criminal is against human rights. Human rights demand that we should have killed them in the first place.” It is similarly described in the book where the leftist student Revolutionaries physically, and physiologically abused many hostages and Ayatollah Khomeni gave his seal of approval to these acts. To the Ayatollah perceptions were more important than truth; a reality he can hold to without a free press and a fair judicial system.

This country does have a judicial process, free press and core values aimed at liberty. On the moral questions raised, it appears that making compromises to those opposing this freewill is counterproductive. It is time we all turn up the volume on the beacon on the hill and stand together for what we are for regardless of WHICH ADMINISTRATION. The situation in the Middle East is very complicated. Pollack is much more versed than myself and his views are highly regarded. But he does not have a clear answer a proven answer. So why would we blame him while serving under Clinton or any other American for not solving this puzzle? I believe this strategy is the key in Pollack’s book the he touches but fails to utilize this KEY to simplify is three-part strategy. Pollock glosses over it, but ever since the Czar of Russia recognized the will of the people were not behind Napoleon, he knew the French would retreat regardless of what happened on the battlefield. A beacon on the hill is for liberty and anti terrorism. Let it shine through our people and our press. But let us shine what unites us, rather than that which divides us.