King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution—A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation by Scott Anderson

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Anderson has provided a very important history of the run-up to the fall of the Shah and the onset of the Iranian revolution, with a history of U.S. involvement in Iran going back to World War 2. If you are wondering how the United States made such a mess out of the relationship with Iran this is the book for you. For those without a lot of knowledge of this history you may be amazed at how many missteps, blunders, and general mistakes were made by the diplomats working for the U.S. on the “Iran desk” as the end of the regime came closer.

The American diplomatic incompetence on Iran was not just attributable to one or two powerful officials in a position to push an incorrect line, but was deeply ingrained in the entire bureaucracy, with small exception. An aversion to upsetting the prevailing group think, and a strong attachment to the Shah simply blinded key policy makers from some fairly discernible truths. Amazingly, when the Shah was teetering, and after he fell, there were some in the U.S. that painted Ayatollah Khomeini as a viable alternative, misreading the very plain signals that Khomeini had put out while in exile. We are still paying the price for this incompetence.

The Shah of Iran came to power after a U.S. supported coup in 1953 overthrew Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Mosaddegh. This coup has been the source of much Iranian outrage over the years and decades, and a powerful source of anti-Shah propaganda while he was in power. The Shah started as a “tool of the Americans” in many Iranian minds and in the end that is where he ended up.

Anderson gives us all the history but really focuses on the run-up to the Shah losing power in Iran, and how both the Shah and the U.S. State Department just did not have a grip on the realities on the ground in Iran as the political upheaval began. Not all of the State Department personnel on the Iran desk were incompetent, but the major players were. The American failures went right up the line to the national security team in the White House headed by Zbigniew Brzezinski. The failures were not limited to the diplomatic corps. On the first page of the book Anderson gives us a CIA assessment of Iran’s political future.

“The Shah will be an active participant in Iranian life well into the 1980’s…There will be no radical change in Iranian political behavior in the near future.” -secret CIA report “Iran in the 1980’s,” August 1977, five months before the start of the revolution.”

Anderson, Scott King of Kings The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation. Preface Page 1
The strength of the book lies, in my view, in the separate tracks Anderson gives us a clear eyed view of. The tracks are:

1. The governing activities of the Shah, and the delusion which propelled his actions, or lack thereof.
2. The diplomatic failures of the American government, which were both wide and deep.
3. The Khomeini revolution and how it managed to succeed, and how the Ayatollah managed to somewhat cloak his true intentions, and essentially jettison some of the initial “moderates” that provided him political support while he was in exile. Deeply connected to items 1 and 2.

Lets look at the diplomatic failures of the U.S. which were so pervasive that they can be fairly described as embarrassing. The type of failures involved here would, in my view, become symptomatic of future U.S. diplomatic disasters, like Iraq. Different players, same characteristics. The Administration sets a diplomatic marker and seeks to carry it forward regardless of facts on the ground, and treating anyone who had a different point of view as someone to be marginalized.

“Going all the way back to the 1940’s, the shah became incensed whenever he learned foreign diplomats were talking with those he considered his competitors or opposition. As U.S.-Iranian relations grew steadily closer, so did the desire of successive American ambassadors to stay on His Majesty’s good side, and the more they discouraged their underlings from consorting with malcontents or pursuing the sorts of critical fact-gathering forays known to upset him.

Anderson, Scott King of Kings The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation. Page 85

The U.S. embassy had a lack of Farsi speakers, and as noted above a desire to put the best face on the delusional beliefs of the Shah. The U.S. embassy did not have enough Farsi speakers? One of those Farsi speakers, an American diplomat Michael Metrinko, reported on severe unrest in the countryside that did not comport with the line put forward by the Shah’s government. Metrinko’s analysis was given short shrift by the U.S. Ambassador, and relegated to a a diplomatic pouch that was not read in Washington. Gary Sick was another whose counsel was marginalized. The Carter Administration had, across the Board, severe divisions on foreign policy. In this case the top echelons essentially took their eye off the ball and relied on the representations of the Iran desk and the Embassy. That was a fatal mistake.

The Shah, for all his reputation as an autocrat, simply did not have the personal strength to deal with difficult issues, even those not related to his eventual overthrow.
Brzezinski believed that the Shah should have suppressed the Khomeini revolution with the military. His indecisive nature had always been problematic, but when faced with the tidal wave of the Khomeini movement he just froze. American misjudgment as to what Khomeini represented contributed to the chaos, but the Shah, living in his own world, could not devise any workable solution. The American lack of understanding of the true nature of Khomeini was inexplicable. Khomeini had, as part of his ongoing propaganda effort, distributed throughout Iran fiery anti-Shah sermons on cassettes. These cassettes gave some clue as the the true goals of the Ayatollah, but they were never translated by the American side.

Khomeini’s usage, and eventual jettisoning of the moderate elements of the movement, is a fascinating look at how it was not just the U.S. government that was fooled by the Ayatollah. Prominent early supporters, even government ministers, eventually fell as the regime radicalized. Maybe if we translated a few cassettes the surprise would not have been as big.

If the American diplomatic effort was not so awful could the Shah’s regime have been saved? That is hard to say with any degree of certainty. The Shah himself may have been beyond saving due to his own high level of detachment. The Carter Administration has taken a lot of criticism over the years, and in this case much of it is deserved. The final indignity, of the U.S. embassy being overrun and American diplomats being held hostage, was precipitated by the total mishandling of the admission of the Shah to the United States by the Carter Administration. Carter himself, in initially refusing the Shah entry, understood the dangers of admittance. When the Shah’s medical condition, after leaving Iran, took a turn for the worse, President Carter, under significant pressure, was moving to reversing himself and allowing the Shah to enter the U.S. he asked his staff, some of whom were advocates for the Shah being allowed in:

“What are you guys going to advise me to do if they overrun our embassy and take our people hostage?”

Anderson, Scott King of Kings The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation. Page 396

Despite that worry the Shah was admitted without any withdrawal of U.S. personnel from Iran. Another major mistake, and one that helped to doom the Carter re-election effort.

If you have any interest in how the Iranian revolution came to be, and how the U.S. managed to bungle the diplomacy involved, this book is outstanding and a must read.





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