Persians - Age Of The Great Kings

 Persians

The Age Of The Great Kings

By Lloyd LLewwllyn-Jones

 

I picked up this book to gain a bit more substance to my general feeling that Cyrus and Darius were great benevolent kings.  I wanted more insight and the book certainly delivered.  Turns out the Achaemenid held rule over Persian Empire for a two hundred years (~550 -330 BCE).  It was a classic familial royal dynasty, with classic familial intrigue, including assassins, poisoning, and conquests. Wrapped into this family were brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, mothers, concubines, and lastly eunuchs.  It seems eunuchs played a major part in the executions of palace tasks, which positioned them in the thick of the whispering plots.  The prime King names were:

• Cyrus II “the Great” (550–529 BC)
• Cambyses II (529–522 BC)
• Darius I (522–486 BC)
• Xerxes I (486–465 BC)
• Artaxerxes I (465–425 BC)
• Xerxes II (425–424 BC)
• Darius II (423–404 BC)
• Artaxerxes II (404–359 BC)
• Artaxerxes III (359–338 BC)
• Arses (338–336 BC)
• Darius III (336–330 BC)

The book lacked maps of which I recommend you have next to you while reading.  Over time of conquest Persian Empire spanned east to west from Pakistan to Euro Asia north to south from the Black and Caspian Seas to Egypt and the Indus Valley (India).  Each King had a hand in a new conquest, new palace, and maintaining the peace of their conquest.  The reader is made aware that what gave the Ruler Kings a benevolent reputation is they allowed those they conquered for the most part to continue their beliefs and way of life.  So one may reflect on who the founding fathers of the USA modeled their governance on? 

 

The book concludes with a chapter King Alexander the Great on the conquest of the Great Persian.  And an epilogue on how this history shapes the minds of modern day Iranians, of which I have an affinity for.  Missing in this history is Persia from 530 BCE to 600 AD under Alexander rule and then Muslim rule, and then  the crucial story of Iran from 1905 through 1979 of secular politics, and finally the brutal IRGC rule from 1979 to present day. 

Why is this history important to me?  Because it helps re-enforce my hope for the IRGC to be removed from Iran.

 

To come are the excerpts from the book… promise

Shahnameh

 Shahnameh

By Aboloasem Ferdowsi

This book is about the lineage of Persian Kayanid Kings and the Persian House of Sasson. With that lineage comes an evolving philosophy of man’s thought from the perspective of justice and injustice. It begins in a mythological setting and then over time evolves into a story that may have taken place in the time when Persia was great, concluding with the triumph of Islam over Persia. Through out the mythological portion of the book the author explores the concepts of what is observable reality (good, god) and contrasts that with unobservable conjecture or sorcery magic. While the lineage progresses through many kings, it is when you read of King Ardesher that you sense you are reading ancient history rather than myth. The subtle clue would be when Ferdowsi describes the king writing a letter in Palhavi, an ancient language. It is here that Ferdowsi begins the practice of dedicating whole chapters to one king’s reign. Every king has a vizier and a champion. Through these intermediaries the thought process borne in conversation brings the king to order just or unjust deeds reveals the prevailing philosophy.

The lineage of Kayanid Kings of the House of Sasson begins with quick summaries of names from the family Kayumars beginning with Siamak who is killed by a black demon, and then Hushag’s victory, where the Kayumars pursue and kill the black demon. This fast moving chronology leaves Hushag to inherit the crown, as he is the one with the royal farr and the presence of a tall cypress tree who can think with clarity, all prerequisite to inheriting the throne. The primary way in which the Persian kingdom expanded was through a sitting King doling out frontier land to his sons. In the beginning one son received Yemen, which would be today’s Middle East. Another received land in India, which would be today’s Afghanistan, and Pakistan and the third Turan, which would be today’s Turkmenistan. Feraydun’s reign was the first to go into a bit more detail. The author does this so that he can introduce the concept of a dark magic that clouds the mind of one who feels cheated. A cheated mind draws on vengeance. The brothers that were ruling Turan and India felt they did not get the favored Persia and plotted to and did kill the son who received Yemen. King Feraydon through his champion Zal who is blessed by the Zoroastrian Angel Smiorgh avenges the evil acts of his other two sons.

The early kings of Persia had much in common with early Arab kings and hence the family tree found relatives of mixed royal blood and the two peoples were very close, while rule still came from Persia. As Persia expanded its reach into India, China, and Turkmenistan they too came under the influence of Persia’s King of Kings. All gains of kingdoms came either through war, marriage or the giving of a daughter. As the family cypress tree branched the lineage of kings became difficult to track.


To garner the philosophy conveyed in this book, the reader need only to pay attention to the dialogue between warriors, or between a king and his vizier. In a reign of a king that expands or contracts finds in each battle the combatants making declarations towards the other as to why he shall prevail in the contest. For an example one of the notable champions, Rostam declares to Gorgin ''when passion overcomes wisdom no one escapes its clutches; but the wise man who overcomes passion will be a renowned lion.” A central tenant to the Zoroastrian doctrine is wisdom of which in this context Ferdowsi makes no reference to faith or doctrine as he had already weaved into the message.

In a different battle between Rostam and Esfandyar, later in the book Ferdowsi provides further dialogue that represents the notion that one man is a piece of a puzzle put together by the power of the revolving heavens giving a rationale to the concept of fate. Both Rostam and Esfandyar found honor in death, hence there was no fear, the number one obstacle to learning. Their minds and messages are clear. They were both Persian warriors the former a champion of past kings living in Arab land the latter the champion of the current Persian king. They took a sense of chivalry into every battle. In the parley dialogue you find Rostam saying:

“A noble warrior whose audacity
Lights up the world and brings him victory
Laughs at both good and evil, since he knows
Both come from God, whom no one can oppose.”

With a chapter mixed of prose and verse, which is often the case, at the conclusion of the battle you find Esfandyar’s last words to Rostam were:

All that has happened, happened as Fate willed.
Not you, your arrow, or the Smigorgh killed
Me here: Goshtap’s my father’s, enmity
Made you the means by which to murder me.
He ordered me back to Sistan, to turn
It to a wilderness, to slay and burn,
To suffer war’s travails: while he alone
Enjoyed the glory of his crown and throne.
I ask you to accept my son, to raise
Him in Sistan, to teach him manhood ways:
He is a wise and willing youth: from you
He’ll learn the skills of war, what he must do
At courtly banquets when the wine goes around,
How to negotiate or stand his ground,
Hunting, the game of polo – everything
That suits the education of a king
As for Jamasp*, may his accursed name
Perish, and may he waste away in shame.

*Visiar and astrologer to King Goshtap

In the context of the chapter and the book as a whole the reader comes to appreciate the Zoroastrian religion from a distance, which is woven into the warp of the story without ever introducing it as the overarching religion of influence on Persian’s, binding man to the fate of the revolving heavens. Ferdowsi speaks as this can be the only option, and for the 1,500 years it was apparently so.

Where a king’s rule is passed on through inheritance there is always a lesson the predecessor conveys to his son the new king. With the passing on of authority the young prince is first instructed in the rule of wisdom. The following is an example of the things a king would tell is prince in the passing of the throne:

“Live your life in happiness and consider fate...while one is brought up with luxury and the other is thrown bewildering and despairing into a dark pit, another is lifted from the pit and raised to a throne...The world is has no shame in doing this; it is prompt to hand out both pleasure and pain and has no need for us and our doings. Such is the way of the world that guides us to both good and evil. There are three things that cures all ills; wealth, effort, chivalrous men...the forth is that we praise God.”

It is important that readers of this review appreciate that God is the immeasurable reality of the heavens, that the stars are many but that god is one and that all are powerless beneath this law. God is not rendered a personal identity. He who does not respect this basic tenant is not worthy to be a king. The universe gives and takes equally.

As the book comes closer and closer to the current time, it was written in the 10th century, Fedowsi prepares the reader for the demise of the Sasson Kings by first presenting a king who has turned on his people and second by that king not having a son to inherit the throne. So how the Persians bought the fate through their actions is an important ingredient to their fall. It was left to fate that Islam would take her vengeance on Persia by not just reigning over them, but totally changing their way of life. Rostam, the king’s knight writes a letter to his brother that appears somewhat prophetic, or did Ferdowsi already witness the potential damage of Islam? I close this review with the portions of his letter that describes Ferdowsi’s speculation of what will happen and leave the parts that describe his feelings about his future to readers willing to delve into the book.

My thoughts on the book have me quite curious about the Zoroastrian faith. It is the precursor to our current major religions. Every time Zoroaster is brought up in the book it is a though there were no other faith. What you do read about though is the difference between good and evil or justice and injustice, which is a fundamental tenant of Zoroastrian doctrine. You read that the universe treats all man the same. It also exposes the flaws in man guided by the laws of Zoroaster. Its not the doctrine, but rather the man’s inability to fend off the magical powers of Ahrima*. And finally as Zoroastrians are compared to Muslim’s Ferdowsi casts a dark shadow over the latter and comes relatively close in his predictions as to outcomes of an Islamic Dynasty. Two things compelled me to read this book. First was the August 2008 issue of National Geographic. Second are my good friends during the time I lived in New York, Amir and Mondana who are Iranians in exile. Amir would always say to me. “Paul Iran is not Arab, we are not even Muslim at our roots. All Iran wants is to have their place as a world power at peace in the world.” He said most Iranians feel this way and we should not be misled by the current regime. This book certainly corroborates Amir’s words.

* ahrima is the Zoroastrian corollary to the Christian devil

A wise man will be saddened when he learns
Of how the moving sphere of heavens turns:
Caught in the evil clutch of Ahriman,
I am the time’s most sad and sinful man;
This house will lose all trace of sovereignty
Of royal glory, and of victory.
The sun looks down from its exalted sphere
And sees the day of our defeat draw near:
Both Mars and Venus now oppose our cause
And no man can evade the heaven’s laws.
Saturn and Mercury divide the sky –
Mercury rules the house of Gemini:
Ahead of us lie war and endless strife
Such that my failing heart despairs of life.
I see what has to be, and choose the way
Of silence since there is no more to say:
But for the Persians I will weep, and for
The House of Sasan ruined by this war:
Alas for their great crown and throne, for all
The royal splendor destined now to fall,
To be fragmented be the Arab’s might;
The stars decree for us defeat and flight.
Four hundred years will pass in which our name
Will be forgotten and devoid of fame.

But when the pulpit’s equal to the throne
And Abu Bakr’s and Omar;s names are known
Our long travails will be as naught, and all
The glory we have known will fade and fall.
The stars are with the Arabs, and you’ll see
No crown or throne, no royal sovereignty
Long says will pass, until the worthless fool
Will lead his followers and presume to rule:
They’ll dress in black, their headdress will be made
Of twisted lengths of silk or black brocade.
There’ll be no golden boots or banners then
Our crowns and thrones will not be seen again.
Some will rejoice, while others live in fear
Justice and charity will disappear,
At night , the time to hide away and sleep,
Men’s eyes will glitter to make others weep;
Strangers will rule us then, and with their might
They’ll plunder us and turn our days to night.

They will not care for just or righteous me,
Debit and fraudulence will flourish then.
Warriors will go on foot, while puffed up pride
And empty boasts will arm themselves and ride;
The peasantry will suffer from neglect,
Lineage and skill will garner no respect,
Men will be mutual thieves and have no shame,
Curses and blessings will be thought the same,
What is hidden will be worse than what is known,
And stony-hearted kings will seize the throne.
No man will trust his son, and equally
No son will trust his father’s honesty –
A misbegotten slave will rule the earth,
Greatness and lineage will have no worth,
No one will keep his word, and men will find
The tongue as filled with evil as the mind.
Then Persians, Turks, and Arabs, side by side
Will live together, mingled far and wide –
The three will blur, as if they were the same;
Their languages will be a trivial game.
Men will conceal their wealth, but when they’ve died,
Their foes will pilfer everything they hide.
Men will pretend they’re holy, or they’re wise,
To make a livelihood by telling lies.
Sorrow and anguish, bitterness and pain
Will be as happiness was in the reign
Of Bahram Gur – mankind’s accustomed fate:
There will be no feasts, no festivals of state,
No pleasures, no musicians none of these:
But there’ll be lies and traps and treacheries.
Sour milk will be our food, and course cloth our dress,
And greed for money will breed our bitterness
Between the generations: men will cheat
Each other while they calmly counterfeit
Religious faith. The winter and the spring
Will pass mankind unmarked, no one will bring
The wine to celebrate such moments then
Instead they’ll spill the blood of fellow man,

Zoroastrians

 Zoroastrians

By Mary Boyce

This is a book about what is said to be the forefather of our great religions, founded by the prophet Zoroaster in very early civilized man. It would be commonly associated with fire worshipers as you would find sacred fires as places of worship. In simple form the fire was to the early man where you gathered for warmth, cooking and where humanity came together. While today the fire may be a symbol of the faith, in its beginning it was much more a practice to bring people together. Zoroaster believed there was a separation of good and evil at creation. How subsequent tenants of this concept transitioned from lessons around a fire to a doctrine still practiced 4000 years later begins with song. Have you ever had a song stuck in your head and you couldn’t get it out? Well it was the Prophet Zoroaster who brought what is believed to be the world’s first religion to humanity through song. In a land where writing had yet to be invented, Zoroaster would have his priests commit to memory the Gatha in song, later to be written down.

This book is an academic account of the tenants of Zoroastrianism from is roots through all its evolutionary changes. With a sense of an archeological dig, the reader becomes aware of not only how the world affected Zoroastrianism but also how this ancient faith in turn influenced the Hindu, Buddhist, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim religions. This religion is still alive in corners of the world with strong holds in Tehran, Iran and Bombay, India. In a chronological format the author begins with an overview of the tenets of Zoroaster in the beginning and then pulls them through history capturing the ebb and flow of humanity, giving the reader a sense of before, after and most important the present day pictures of life as a Zoroastrian. I found myself focused on the travesty brought on to this religion by Islam and therefore spend a bit of time dwelling on its relevant bearing on us today.

In the early sections of the book the reader will be introduced to many new terms which may slow down the reading process with words that have no resemblance of English. That is because they are not even close to English sounding words. However spending time to get the cadence and meaning fluent in your mind will make the rest of the book more enjoyable and meaningful. Of the many, I’ve included at the end of this review terms that are critical in terms of understanding and enjoying the book.

If one were to distill all the coda into a practical statement on the merits of Zoroastrianism you could say that Wisdom to see things as they actually are, where Justice is the result of making choices in alignment with reality, and Lying being the fraudulent representation of reality. However history and humanity collude to blur this message. The 21st Century view of Zoroaster’s original tenant must be viewed through a kollidescope and thus provides reasons for debate. You could begin with the lack of the written word, using only the treasures of archeology as only clues to the testament of what was preached left in the symbols found in art. You must also contend with the evolving languages brought on by conquest, dominion and merging of one ruler over another. The effects are found in conquest and merging of cultures where a King could impose an interpretation of preceding doctrine thus imposing a schism in Zoroastrianism similar to what is found between Protestants, Catholics, and Lutherans in our western world.

Since Zoroaster came before the split of the Indo-Iranian culture many of the tenants developed in the beginning had a significant influence over the beliefs, doctrine, and practices, of both the Hindu and the Buddhist people. Against the backdrop of geography and time, we all know that within one language the story takes on at least different colors and many times evokes completely new paths of thought. The next few paragraphs are dedicated to the train to modern day Zoroastrianism. Avestan was the language Zoroaster used in the beginning. This is found in his original Gathas as they were written down long after his death. Pahlavi was the language in the time of the Persian Kings. Sanskrit, albeit equally as old as or older than Pahlavi is the language of India, found it was in prominent doctrine through immigration. The Indo-Iranian split occurred well before Islam, however when Islam forced Zoroastrianism to take refuge tin Bombay, translation from both Avestan and Pahlavi to Sanskrit took on a prominent influence in how we see the Zoroastrian Doctrine today.

With regard to critical deviations from its origins one could look at the Zurvanite split as the most prominent. This occurred under the Achaemenians times of Cyrus, Darius, and Xerxes. The Avestan word ‘zurvan’ means ‘time’ and in a few of the younger Avesta it was used as the name of a minor divinity, hypostatizing time. The usage appears to be a very limited concession to Zurvanites who had come to believe that Time, Zurvan, did not merely provide the framework for events but was actually in control of them, hence a sentient being. While this would be considered heresy to Zoroastrians it ended up under the rule of the King of kings as being a sect of Zoroastrianism. Simply stated by Zurvanite’s through the authority of the King of kings, Ahura Mazda created both good and evil, which is contrary to Zoroaster who said he created all things good, and what wasn’t created by Ahura Mazda was evil. One could easily draw the one –v- many parallel story in the division of Eastern Orthodox and Western Christianity.

The Manichaeism deviation took root under the Sasanian kings with the introduction of a man named Mani who was reared under the Semitic influence brought a pessimistic view on life. Since he gained favor of the King of kings he was given license to twist existing Zoroastrian text to give authority to his views. Again the original Zoroaster priest found heresy in his preaching.

The Mazdakite deviation was brought on an ascetic pessimism where the Sasanian kings found common property to include the women of pheasants as slaves for the royalty. This fractured the families practicing the original tenets of Zoroaster as well strained the loyalty the people held towards their king and his religion. As timing would have it, it was against this back drop that Islam raged through Persia.

In 636 (AD) the Muslim Arabs, driven by poverty and religious fervor, had begun to attack the rich lands bordering their deserts. They overran the Byzantine province of Syria, and soon afterwards crossed onto Mesopotamia and met the Iranian imperial Army at Qadisiya. This conquest utterly different from that of Alexander, was carried out in the spirit of Surah 9.29 of the Quran:”Fight those who believe not in God and the Last Day and do not forbid what Allah and his Messengers have forbidden – such men as practice not the religion of truth, being people of the book – until they pay tribute (dhimmi) out of hand and have been humbled” The dhimmi (Zoroastrian who will not convert) has to stand while paying and the officer who receives it sits. The dhimmi has to be made to feel that he is inferior when he pays a strenuous tax.

Against this force of terror the doctrines of Islam in the beginning were attractively simple; and some of the most important – such as belief of heaven and hell, the end of the world, and the Day of Judgment – derived ultimately from Zoroastrianism and were disarmingly familiar. It made the choice of conversion over death or life in oppressed destitute an easy one. At a deeper level conversion meant change from a dualistic faith of justice/injustice and truth, with an accessible to reason, to one which demanded submission to an inscrutable, all-powerful God, whose decrees and purposes were regarded as beyond man’s understanding, rendering one’s access to God dependent on the Umma and a Caliph. Faced with the choice of death or paying tribute or adopting Islam found many adopters yet they had to find a way to make it work for them as Persians which gave birth to Shi ite.

The Shi ite movement grew steadily strong through the eighth century, fostered by propagandists for the house of Abbas, rivals of the Umayyads; and in the end there was open rebellion which led to Abbasid victory in 750. Ex-Zoroastrian converts an generatio once removed denied access to their original faith and language molded Islam to their liking while still being held to the ultimate mandate to convert which helped convert many more people who could now cross over and regain their sense of power. While strains of Zoroaster can be found in Shi ite Islam there exists a fundamental difference in their character, where a Zoroastrian may be found as a person with a positive and constructive outlook on life the opposite may be found in a She ite.

The triumph of Islam over Zoroastrian Persia led to a variation in the Zoroastrian practice where the inhabitants of Pars, thus adopting the name Parsis in Iran sought refuge in what we now know as Bombay. These religious refugees of India thrived in their own right yet still saw minor changes in their doctrine as the result of interpreting Pahlavi to Sanskrit and the comingling of Hidu and Zoroaster people. Over time as the Christians’ encroached on Parsis people prompting more change where as the Irani people stuck under the yoke of Islam in Iran held more closely to the original Avesta in Iran. There are exponentially more Parsis today than there are Iranis.

Today you can find Zoroastrian fires that have been tended for over two thousand years. Many scholars continue to piece the puzzle together causing a continual threat to the original message of Zoroaster. His original simple message was based in reality, “behold the way things are as sacred”. It is founded in truth and justice. It was simple yet humanity, specifically forces beyond themselves, made many attempts to make it dogmatically complicated. By contrast one can observe in Judaism and Christianity went to great length to impose a complicated message of right and wrong. I am no expert on Hindu or Buddhism, however I can say as found in this book more evidence that Islam is a religion of anything but the truth. As a by-standing participant in today’s terroristic acts on free men, I found a very ominous parallel between the times of 636 Persia and today’s western world. Most people are not even aware of Zoroastrianism. Many people think it is now as has always been , a small dark cult lost somewhere in this world. But contrarily it was the religion of the King of kings for over a thousand years for a multitude majority of people, annihilated in the short span of 70 years. Islam’s greed, borne in a sense of superiority equal to that of Hitler’s Aryan Race syndrome, and is now knocking at our door. Former president Bush recognized this. Our  President Obama appears about to let them in.

Terms:
• Ahura Mazda – Ormzad, lord of wisdom who Zoroaster saw as God
• Gathas are the hymns composed by Zoroaster which contain the basic doctrine that was committed to memory by his followers
• Zend Avesta the sacred book of Zoroastrianism
• Vendidad is a book read at night of the Avesta containing the code against demons.
• Dakhma – is the funeral practice of placing the dead body on a high platform for the vultures to eat the flesh. When there were only bones they would be collected and placed in an ossuary. This was out of respect for the earth as they believed the body would contaminate the pure earth.
• Spenta - is an adjective which characterizes the good creation, possessing power to aid.
• The Doctrine of Three Times – Creation, Mixture, Separation – makes history in a sense cyclical, with the world restored in the third time to the perfection it possessed in the first one. Meanwhile all the sorrows and strivings of the present time of Mixture as part of the battle against Angra Mainyu (evil). Thus Zoroaster not only saw a noble purpose for humanity, but also offered men a reasoned explanation for what they have to endure in this life.
• Yasna – is the act of worship. It is the main Zoroastrian service
• 7 Amahragpands – the seven creations are the first being Ahura Mazda and the six lesser beings forming the heptad with Ahura Mazda himself the six are:
o Vohu Manah – Good Purpose
o Asha Vahishta – Best Righteousness
o Spenta Armaitiurvatat - Holy Devotion
o Khshathra Vairya – Desirable Dominion
o Haurvatat – Health
o Ameretat – Long Life
• Saoshyant – is the one who will bring benefit; and it is he who will lead humanity in the last battle against evil. (saviour)

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 navigable 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 dependent 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 assassinated 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.