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Emery, C. (2013). US Foreign Policy and the Iranian Revolution: The Cold War Dynamics of Engagement and Strategic Alliance

Why did the Carter Administration engage with the Revolutionary government in Iran? Which were the main dynamics driving this engagement? Answering these two questions is the aim of Christian Emery’s timely book US Foreign Policy and the Iranian Revolution. The book discusses the origins of engagement and how the policy adapted to the emergence of three crises: the Iran hostage crisis, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the Iran–Iraq War. In Part one, Emery correctly suggests that the White House initially adopted a “business as usual” attitude towards the Shah, especially when it came to arms transfer and human rights. When this attitude became untenable, the Administration interpreted the turmoil in Iran as a Cold War crisis in which the Soviet Union was either directly involved or waiting in the shadows. For this reason, the intelligence community focused on leftist groups, overestimating the strength of the Tudeh Party (pp. 66–67). When the Revolution took over, Washington maintained its concerns regarding Soviet involvement, but the decision was made to engage with the Revolutionary leaders. “Pathologies,” however, affected this engagement. The engagement extended only to moderate, Western-oriented elements of the Revolution. It was “based on the assumption that clerics could not rule and moderates would place security above ideology and construct foreign policy cognisant of Iran’s geopolitical situation” (p. 89). Furthermore, Washington hoped that the moderates would reply along the lines of US strategic needs, recognising the danger posed by the Soviet Union (p. 75). Part two of the book focuses on the aftermath of the Revolution and on the moves taken by the Administration (now led by the State Department) to deal with the Revolutionary government. Emery deals with both unexpected (the Javits Resolution) and self-inflicted (the refusal to meet Khomeini) blows to the engagement policy. Even when the US decided to engage with Khomeini, it did so driven by the assumption that the role of the clerics was simply “transitory” and with an eye towards potential Soviet gains. Emery, then, chronicles the difficulties inherent in this engagement: the importance