Hist 6393: Empire, War and
Revolution
April 24, 2000
Gary Sick. All Fall Down: America's Tragic Encounter
With Iran. New York, NY:
Yale University Press and the
Council of Foreign Relations, 1986. 366 pp.
Plus Biblio, Notes and Index.
Gary
Sick's All Fall Down: America's Tragic
Encounter With Iran recounts the
American foreign policy
debacles in Iran during the late 1970's.
From an
insider's view as a Carter
administration foreign policy analyst, Sick
details the political collapse
of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlevi's regime, the
rise of Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini as the leader of a fundamentalist Islamic revolution and subsequent
government, and the events surrounding the 1979 capture of American hostages in
Tehran. Sick's thesis argues that
Iran's atypical revolution
fundamentally transformed
Iranian society and sent shockwaves through
American foreign policy. American policymakers misinterpreted the
unique
religious aspect of the
revolution as a tactic by the revolution's secular
leaders to remove the shah and
establish a reform government.
Furthermore,
they mishandled the Iranian
hostage crisis; the political
embarrassment Jimmy
Carter suffered helped lead to
his 1980 electoral defeat by Ronald Reagan.
During
the Cold War, the United States developed a mutually useful
relationship with Iran, a
nation centered on the oil rich Persian Gulf, with a critically strategic
location on the southern border of the Soviet Union.
The
United States had backed the repressive regime of Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlevi
through clandestine operations, supply of military arms and financial
support. Then, in 1953, with
Eisenhower’s approval, the Central Intelligence Agency successfully engineered
a coup that overthrew the popular Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh. President
Nixon further solidified the relationship by giving the shah almost exclusive
responsibility for vital US security interests in the Persian Gulf. By January 1977, the United States
government's policy in the region irreversibly depended on the shah.
During
the 1970's, powerful social forces in Iran contributed to an
increasingly unstable environment as the regime
simultaneously repressed
popular movements, exiled,
arrested and killed dissident leaders and
suppressed speech and
assembly even while it was
attempting to
"westernize" this
long repressed society with modernization and liberalization policies
resembling industrial nations of the west.
As the reforms eased the worst practices of years of authoritarian rule, the populace became more unruly
and flocked behind the banner of the conservative religious Ayatollah Khomeini,
who played upon the fears of the conservative elements. The collision of these
two forces led to violent confrontations between the military and popular
movements representing a wide spectrum of Iranian society led by Islamic
clergy. Supported only by western
educated middle and upper class, the shah saw his control crumble.
The
author points to several mistakes which United States policymakers made
during the unfolding of the
Iranian revolution. He continually
states that
the Carter administration had
other foreign policy objectives during its
tenure and placed Iran at the forefront only too
late. Sick argues
that the administration's
primary foreign policy players (i.e. Secretary of
State Cyrus Vance, Sick's own
boss National Security Advisor Zbigniew
Brzezinski and Carter himself)
preoccupied themselves with the Arab-Israeli
peace process and the SALT II
talks with the Soviets. In Sick's
estimation,
US Ambassador to Iran William
Sullivan also deserves much of the blame as he
created a false sense of
security by reporting misleading information on
Iranian internal dynamics back
to Washington. Sullivan even refers to
Khomeini as the 'Iranian
Gandhi" in one report. US
intelligence agencies, incapable as they were of obtaining any more than
minimal information, then misinterpreted the little they got, particularly the
mullahs’ role in the revolution. Sick
also makes the point that the failure
of the national security apparatus had created an irreversible policy centering
on the shah and gave little room for consideration of other socio-political
forces in Iran until too late.
American
policymakers misunderstood since they viewed the revolution through the prism
of other familiar secular revolutionary and nationalist movements, e.g., the
Russian, the Chinese, the Vietnamese.
They dismissed the revolution's rallying around religion as merely
apparent and tactical, mistaking it for a sweeping secular reform. They misinterpreted the Khomeini's
leadership role and felt the moderate and progressive elements amongst the
revolutionaries would win out.
Khomeini, apparently having studied the tactics of Lenin and Trotsky,
incorporated decentralized religious revolutionary committees in his overall
power structure to consolidate power and assume control over the
revolution. Sick states that typically
American foreign
policymakers supported the
center during foreign revolutions.
Khomeini had
vanquished any center movement
in the revolution.
Beginning
in November1979 with the student militant takeover of the US embassy in Tehran,
the Iranian hostage crisis created further complicated foreign
policy for the Carter
administration. At this point, the
regional aspects of
the Iranian revolution took on
an international perspective. The
United
States public, and the world,
saw the radical takeover of the embassy and
taking of American hostages as
weakness and indecision on the part of
President Carter and his
administration. Defending the
administration, Sick
argues that through a year of
diplomatic overtures and a botched military
rescue Carter successfully
negotiated the safe return of all the hostages
despite his political ruin in
American public opinion. The hostage
taking in
Iran brought American foreign
policy home as the American public and the
administration watched the
repercussions of the long relationship with Iran
unravel into humiliation and
loss of credibility.
Sick's
book falls into the continuity of what I have read in this class.
McCoy's Elusive Republic, McCormick's China
Market and Cohen's Empire Without
Tears each
portray the domestic and economic motivations behind early
American foreign policy. Hogan's Cross
of Iron details the construction of
the National Security State
and Immerman's The CIA in Guatemala
gives an
episodic example of that
National Security State fully utilized and resulting
in success. Sick's All
Fall Down gives another episodic example of a fully
utilized National Security
State that results in utter failure for the United
States policymakers. This book focuses on two events-the Iranian
revolution
and the American hostage
crisis. Both show how policymakers
misunderstood
Iranian internal politics and
not only allowed the revolution to triumph, but
also led to a loss of
all-important American credibility.
Following closely
after the Vietnam war, the
Iranian debacle further deepened American
suspicion and cynicism about
the role of American foreign intervention.
Sick's book is a good biased
read about the trials and tribulations of the
Carter administration's
foreign affairs. In his view, Carter is
misrepresented by his image as
an indecisive passive leader. The book
gives a
revealing insight into policy
making of the late 70's and into the functioning of the modern National
Security state.