The Hoover Institute's Michael McFaul reviews Ken Pollack's Persian Puzzle at Slate:

Amazingly, given Iran's strategic importance, The Persian Puzzle is the first comprehensive treatment of U.S.-Iranian relations since James Bill's book The Eagle and the Lion, published 16 years ago. Neither a tirade against evil mullahs nor an indictment of American imperialism, Pollack's book is a nuanced treatment of a bilateral relationship that has itself been anything but nuanced. If there is a theme to Pollack's analysis, in fact, it is American ineptitude.

In conclusion, McFaul echoes a point Michael Ledeen made to Greg Djerejian the other day. Here's McFaul:

In Washington these days, the phrase "regime change" is intimately associated with the 82nd Airborne, not radio broadcasts. But a serious U.S. strategy of regime change in Iran will have nothing to do with F-16s, Apache helicopters, or Marines and everything to do with visas, scholarships, and grants to women's groups.

Here's some relevant background on what they may have in mind, here and here. Update: Dan Darling has more (via Matt Yglesias).

Update: Reviewing Pollack's book in Sunday's Washington Post, Fred Kaplan writes:

The Persian Puzzle is mainly a history, and Pollack -- a former Persian Gulf analyst for the CIA and the National Security Council -- grippingly narrates the last 50 years of U.S.-Iranian relations, a loopy psychodrama of mutual suspicion and tragic stumblings ...

Pollack heaps particular scorn on two presidents: Jimmy Carter, whose ill-timed embrace of the shah enraged and radicalized Iranian students; and George W. Bush, who muffed a serious opportunity for a breakthrough after 9/11...

Yet Pollack holds the Iranians -- with their "impractical ideology" and "dysfunctional government" -- most responsible for the continued deadlock. Bush's father and Bill Clinton both made genuine overtures, but they were repeatedly dashed by the mullahs, whose control has only tightened over the years.

So, now what?

In the last chapter, Pollack proposes a true "carrot-and-stick approach," in which the United States and its Western allies offer Iran rewards if it backs away from its nuclear-arms program, and penalties -- mainly sanctions -- if it persists. But he doubts that U.S. allies, whose "paramount desire" is "to make money off Iran regardless of its actions," would really enforce sanctions...

If diplomacy fails, Pollack gloomily grasps at two opposing poles. One is to take "a much harder look" at a preemptive air strike on Iran's facilities. If we had "very solid intelligence" on where they are (which Pollack thinks unlikely), "the costs might well be worth the payoff." The other is to figure out a way of "living with a nuclear Iran."

Posted by Laura at December 2, 2004 06:16 PM