The Last Shah: America, Iran, and the Fall of the Pahlavi Dynasty

Professor Takeyh has written a concise history of Iran under the late Mohammad-Reza Shah's rule, and its relations with the United States.The author has extensive background in the contemporary history of Iran, and has used many resources for his book including American, Russian, British and refreshingly, Iranian references for his research.As an Iranian myself with keen interest in history in general and the history of Iran in particular, I found this book to be an interesting read on the life and the times of the Shah. As we say in Persian, "a victor has a thousand parents, while a loser is always an orphan." . Unfortunately after the Shah lost his throne in the aftermath of Islamic revolution, many historians resorted to use the vicious propaganda of his opponents before 1979 and also the conquerors of his palace after 1979 have been diffusing, drawing a caricature of him as nothing but a "bloodthirsty U.S. puppet", who was installed by a C.I.A. coup, sponsored by the British to wrongfully overthrow the "democratically elected patriot", Mohammad Mossaddegh...In recent times the reality is appearing to be something very different from the "conventional wisdom", and this book helps to light this dark corner of the history with objective skepticism : Using the many references at his disposal , Takeyh depicts a monarch that at the beginning watched the great powers, the British empire, the U.S. and the Soviet Union attack his country, depose his father while attempting to install a prince of the former ruling dynasty , who was not even capable of speaking Persian, let alone having spent time inside Iran. This made the young king very skeptical of the western powers and the Iranian aristocracy who still disdained the newly established Pahlavi dynasty for deposing the Qajar monarchs.The mindset of the king was therefore set to become a decisive element in the tumultuous years of the second world war and its aftermath, in which Iran was under Soviet occupation and at one time under threat of puppet regimes set by Stalin to carve out Iran for his gains. Takeyh impressively covers this critical epoch of Iranian history.The next chapter in Iranian history was the controversial oil nationalization movement, which I think is the magnum opus of this research provided by Takeyh, and refreshingly so : As I mentioned unfortunately many historians with staunch sympathies towards Mossaddegh have written many books sanitizing his disastrous rule,and pointing fingers at the Shah, the C.I.A. and the British for his demise. Takeyh, as he has done in an impressive article published years back, questions this very myth with ample references. He shows how unyielding Mossaddegh were to the overtures from both the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. to resolve the oil crisis, alienating both Eisenhower and Molotov from himself at the time that he needed an international orchestration to handle such a grave crisis, then at the time the sanctions became exasperating, he alienated the members of his own party, including Mozaffer Bagha'i and Ayatollah Kashani, and even unconstitutionally forced the Shah to forego his prerogative of being the head of the armed forces and make him the commander of chief, to which the Shah agreed without protest.His most bizarre attack on the Iranian democracy came in the fateful summer of 1953, when the disillusioned parliament fell at odds with him, making Mossaddegh trump the constitution by absolving the parliament. To make his move look legally bounding, he resorted to a referendum which was done in very questionable circumstances. Interestingly, as Takeyh mentions in this book, the Shah until this episode was very reluctant to take any stance against the authoritarian prime minister who was growing despotic day by day especially after his chief of police was found dead, with martial law declared and the opponents of Mossaddegh arrested and tortured.An important note here is that even Mossaddegh's erudite interior minister, the prominent Iranian sociologist Professor Gholam-Hossein Seddighi (sometimes spelled Sadighi in some western references) begged him not to proceed with the referendum, as according to the constitution in the absence of the parliament the king had the right to appoint a new prime minister, only to be yelled at by Mossaddegh shouting " No one dares to touch me now including that boy ! " . this shocking interaction between the renegade prime minister and his educated cabinet member is rarely, if at all, mentioned in the pro-Mossaddegh histories. Takeyh, on the other hand brings this to the reader's attention, showing that how despotic -and alienated from reality- had Mossaddegh become, to the point that he had no allies left, including the very own people who once cheered his first cabinet.After the Shah issued the decree asking the prime minister to step down, Mossaddegh decided to arrest the royal courier who brought the kings' decree. This prompted the Shah to think that coup was in effect against him and he escaped to neighboring Iraq immediately. In the aftermath, the Americans were caught completely off-guard the army who they were pushing to act in case Mossaddegh's became rebellious, remained inactive and observant. This made American think that the much aspired coup was failed miserably. The fact was army was already getting prepared to act against Mossaddegh weeks before, but now the needed a pretext and a legal one for that matter to move against him . This was what Americans actually did : The next day the Shah left, they showed that in contrary to Mossaddegh's claim, Shah had indeed asked him to step down , and the prime minister had kept the news hidden from the public. This is thoroughly covered in this book and is a must-read for anyone interested in the events of the summer of 1953, which demonstrates that contrary to the urban legend, the Iranians were already fed up with Mossaddegh and did not need one Kermit Roosevelt to suddenly show up in Tehran and spend 60 thousand dollars only to turn the entire army against a "very popular" prime minister.In the next chapters, the author elaborates on how the Shah became autocratic year by year, ensured that no prime minister is worthy of his trust, no foreign power worthy of a deep friendship. Takeyh very astutely shows how Shah grow more independent and more asserting as years went by especially with respect to Americans, and contrary to the "conventional wisdom" of being an American puppet, at the times falling at odds with many U.S. administrations to move forward his ambitious plans to modernize Iran.Indeed as Takeyh mentions his modernization endeavors were a historic success,albeit with shockingly inauspicious consequences : The king eradicated feudalism once and for all, and gave the women and the religious minorities of Iran voting rights. This all angered a cleric by the name of Ayatollah Khomeini, who started to call for the king to be deposed . although his rebellion lasted only a day back in June of 1963, when Khomeini resurfaced in November 1977 after years of being silent in exile, to Shah's astonishment the recently established and burgeoning middle class of Iran, whose very initiation and existence was indebted to his brilliant modernizing policies, decided to take side with the anachronistic cleric.The end result of the revolution, as Takeyh puts it, was a so-called "republic of virtue", in which the Shah's generals who were given amnesty before their ill-fated announcement of "army neutrality" , were put in front of firing squads within days if not hours of the triumph of the revolution. In the months after Khomeini successfully spear headed an " Islamic republic" in another shady referendum , which dismayed his nationalist and communist revolutionary allies, and after the discussion about an Islamic constitution started to become problematic for him, he ordered all the opposing newspapers to be closed in the summer of 1979 and when the dying Shah visited New York to seek treatment for his cancer in October, Khomeini found the perfect excuse to outmaneuver his communist opponents, and showcase himself as the "ultimate anti-American" figure in the total mess of Iranian post-revolutionary politics. All this is charmingly detailed in Professor Takeyh's outstanding book.The only reason I gave this book 4 stars instead of 5, is that in my opinion the book could have detailed the revolutionary period more deeply. Its section seems too brief to me, and some key players are not mentioned, such as Dr. Seddighi, Mossaddegh's interior minister who agreed to become Shah's prime minister in December 1978, only to be despicably shunned and estranged by his fellow members in the National Front.Another reason for me not giving 5 stars is more of a personal, political opinion : In one point Takeyh mentions that the Shah "had contempt" for his people. I find this statement far from truth and unfair. In contrary I think Shah was overconfident about the love Iranians had for him, that when he saw millions chanting death to the Shah in the streets of Tehran in that fateful fall of 1978, he was taken by total surprise and dismay.At the end the tragedy of Mossaddegh, the Shah, and Iran in general is that the aforementioned men were both titans of Iranian politics and genuine progressives who strove to bring free education and healthcare, and emancipation of women and minorities to a backward country ravaged by decades and centuries of mismanagement. Still both men at the end of their rule became so autocratic and alienated from every element in the Iranian society that the pinnacle of their success became the beginning of their end.To quote Professor Morteza Mardiha, the Iranian professor of political sociology : " [The Shah's] cynicism was nothing either unusual or unexpected : Imagine that you [the Pahlavis] receive Iran from the Qajars full of "Pehen"(Manure) and hand it over to the next regime (Islamic republic) full of "Paykan" (Iran's national automobile). To receive a populace infested by typhus and leprosy and scabies, provide them with sanitized water,sewage, bathrooms, and public hospitals and clinics , and yet witness the so-called "intellectuals" instead of praising the miracle that was happening, start drawing the picture of a bloodsucking vampire out of you ! Then you will definitely believe that no one but god itself was capable of this power to spin the truth so tremendously against you. I remember in one of the public gatherings of the Students Following the Path of Imam, it was mentioned that "the U.S. supported a regime that killed children in the arms of their mothers for decades !" And no one dared to question how that was even possible ? where was the evidence ? No one asked that , instead every person chanted to the top of their lungs "It's true ! It's true!" ... Of course in such a climate Shah had every reason to believe that there must some nefarious entity in action against him beside the common stupidity of the masses" .

A very valuable addition to the historical record of the late Shah's life and unhappy ending. Well-written and organized. Also very refreshing to see someone FINALLY point out that yes, the CIA hatched a plot to oust Prime Minister Mossadeqh but that plot failed and it was the Iranians themselves who eventually ousted him.

It’s a good book for an eye into Iran and the life of Reza shah. While the book is detailed in many ways, the number of characters is overwhelming to keep track off. I also wish the author didn’t jump back and forth on the timelines.The structure of the society in Iran as portrayed in the book came across as very similar to European societies in that there is a monarch and a Majlis(parliament) and that the Majlis consisted od noblemen, landed gentry and aristocratic businessmen. These members were the eyes and ears of the Shah in to the happenings in rural Iran. It also came across that the clergy was in general deference to the Shah and accepted him as a leader, with the exception of course of Khomeni who was exiled first in Iraq and then in France.The Shah’s relationship with many consecutive US administrations came across to me as extremely cordial and especially as late as 1977 when Carter spent the New Year’s Eve in Teheran continuing to embellish the relationship. The Shah's white revolution in the early sixties and of the newly founded oil wealth where absentee landlords were made to part with land and redistribute it was generally welcomed by the population. The US administrations were generally pleased in the direction the Shah was moving Iran.The book is light on the drama with Oil and BP's extreme assertions of early contracts since as early in 1906 (and some modifications in the 1930s) and especially the intransigence of BP executives. As with other corporate contracts the sanctity of these was pounded repeatedly at Mossadeq; yet the world was moving to 50/50 deals with Mexico and Venezuela and Aramco (Arab American Co a partnership of Exxon, Texaco, Socal, Shell and Gulf - has offered a 50/50 deal to Saudi Arabia); BP insisted of maximizing it's off take keeping workers in squalid conditions and a minimum remuneration to the Iranians. The working conditions can easily understood from British colonies from India to Africa where slaves were shackled and led off to British plantations worldwide.Most surprising was that Kissinger considered the House of Saud as a pack of cards ready to crumble under Feizal, and that Shah was the bulwark of strength in that region, and that US should be behind him. Strange then that the history turned out quite differently and Kissinger spent the next twenty years sanitizing his own foolish policy doctrine.The circumstances of Mossadeq’s assasination didn’t come out clearly in the book as he had for two years agitated for nationalizing the Anglo Persian oil Company(BP)an . There are mild references to Allen Dulles, Churchill and Eisenhower and the military establishment in Iran but the author takes a pass on his own conclusions.The book is overall a good read - with patience - and that I would add that it goes well with ”The Seven Sisters” by Anthony Sampson on the history of oil.MD

Amazing read which actually tells the whole story of the 1953 Coup, is honest about the relationships that American presidents had with the Shah and made sure to point out all of his failings and brilliance. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn more about Iran.

A concise history of Modern Iran until the revolution. Essential reading.