The Appeal of Iran, Review of Shahram Chubin's Iran's National Security Policy: Capabilities and Intentions, (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1994); and Geoffrey Kemp's Forever Enemies? American Policy and the Islamic Republic of Iran, (Washington, D.C.: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1994).
Iran is probably the most emotional foreign policy relationship to confront America since the Vietnam War. Given the high drama that has characterized dealings between the two countries in the last two decades, it could hardly be otherwise. First, there was the stunning and unanticipated collapse of America's good friend, the Shah. Against the background of the love affair of various American presidents with the glitter and pomp of the Peacock Throne; the major strategic role assigned by Washington to Iran that began during the Nixon administration; and the concomitant, huge, lucrative role of American companies and defense industries in Iran, this collapse amounted to the biggest setback America has ever encountered in the Middle East. Then, in rapid succession, came Iran's seizure of the American Embassy in 1979, its detention of American hostages for nearly two years, and Carter's humiliatingly bungled desert rescue mission to save them. All this brought the Carter presidency down. Reagan's Iran policy, too, simplistically implemented and fatally damaged by the illegal Nicaraguan Contra connection, cost his administration dearly. It even tainted George Bush and made his whole administration gun-shy on Iran.
