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Reassessing the Eagle and the Lion

Review products

RohamAlvandi, Nixon, Kissinger, and the Shah: The United States and Iran in the Cold War (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014, £38.99). Pp 272. isbn978 0 1993 7569 1.

ChristianEmery, US Foreign Policy and the Iranian Revolution: The Cold War Dynamics of Engagement and Strategic Alliance (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013, £62.00). Pp 267. isbn978 1 137 32986 8.

StephenMcGlinchey, U.S. Arms Policies towards the Shah's Iran (Oxford: Routledge, 2014, £110.00). Pp 202. isbn978 0 4157 3921 4.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 October 2017

BEN OFFILER*
Affiliation:
Humanities Department, Sheffield Hallam University. Email: b.offiler@shu.ac.uk.

Extract

In June 2013, Iran surprised many observers by electing the moderate, but still firmly establishment, cleric Hassan Rouhani as President. Following Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's eight years in office, few analysts predicted Rouhani's victory. It was expected that Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, would oversee the election of a more controllable conservative politician than Ahmadinejad had turned out to be. Instead, the array of hard-line candidates presented to the electorate on polling day split the conservative vote, resulting in an overwhelming victory for Rouhani.

Type
Review Essay
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and British Association for American Studies 2017 

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References

1 “Obama's Video Message to Iranians: ‘Let's Start Again’,” The Guardian, 21 March 2009, at www.theguardian.com/world/2009/mar/21/barack-obama-iran-video-message.

2 “Obama Holds Historic Phone Call with Rouhani and Hints at End to Sanctions,” The Guardian, 28 September 2014, at www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/27/obama-phone-call-iranian-president-rouhani.

3 For example, see Blake, Kristen, The U.S.–Soviet Confrontation in Iran, 1945–1962: A Case in the Annals of the Cold War (Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2009)Google Scholar; Collier, David R., “To Prevent a Revolution: John F. Kennedy and the Promotion of Development,” Diplomacy and Statecraft, 34, 3 (2013), 456–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Fisher, Christopher T., “‘Moral Purpose Is the Important Thing’: David Lilienthal, Iran, and the Meaning of Development in the US, 1956–63,” International History Review, 33, 3 (Sept. 2011), 431–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Gasiorowski, Mark J., U.S. Foreign Policy and the Shah: Building a Client State in Iran (London: Cornell University Press, 1991)Google Scholar; Goode, James F., The United States and Iran: In the Shadow of Musaddiq (Basingstoke: Macmillan Press Ltd, 1997)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Johns, Andrew L., “The Johnson Administration, the Shah of Iran, and the Changing Pattern of U.S.–Iranian Relations, 1965–1967: ‘Tired of Being Treated like a Schoolboy’,” Journal of Cold War Studies, 9, 2 (Spring 2007), 6494 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nemchenok, Victor V., “In Search of Stability amid Chaos: US Policy toward Iran, 1961–63,” Cold War History, 10, 3 (Aug. 2010), 341–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Nemchenok, , “‘That So Fair a Thing Should Be So Frail’: The Ford Foundation and the Failure of Rural Development in Iran, 1953–1964,” Middle East Journal, 63, 2 (Spring 2009), 261–84Google Scholar; Offiler, Ben, US Foreign Policy and the Modernization of Iran: Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and the Shah (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Popp, Roland, “An Application of Modernization Theory during the Cold War? The Case of Pahlavi Iran,” International History Review, 30, 1 (March 2008), 7698 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Summitt, April, “For a White Revolution: John F. Kennedy and the Shah of Iran,” Middle East Journal, 58, 4 (Autumn 2004), 560–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Warne, Andrew, “Psychoanalyzing Iran: Kennedy's Iran Task Force and the Modernization of Orientalism, 1961–3,” International History Review, 35, 2 (2013), 396422 CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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6 For a similar argument that criticizes Kennedy's reformist credentials see Offiler, 26–68. For a perspective that emphasizes the Kennedy administration's reformist ideals see Collier.

7 Graham Allison and Niall Ferguson, “Why the U.S. President Needs a Council of Historians,” The Atlantic, Sept. 2016, at www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/09/dont-know-much-about-history/492746. For an alternative perspective see Jeremy Adelman, “Who Needs Historians?”, Chronicle Review, 9 Aug. 2016, at www.chronicle.com/article/Who-Needs-Historians-/237415.