Us Foreign Policy And The Modernization Of Iran

US Foreign Policy and the Modernization of Iran examines the evolution of US-Iranian relations during the presidencies of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Richard M. Nixon. It demonstrates how successive administrations struggled to exert influence over the Shah of Iran's regime domestic and foreign policy.

Mark Gasiorowski here examines the cliency relationship that existed between the United States and Iran during the reign of the late shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and assesses the effects of this relationship on Iran's domestic politics. Gasiorowski argues that by bolstering the shah's repressive regime in the 1950s and early 1960s, the U.S.-Iran cliency relationship indirectly helped bring about the Iranian revolution.

US Foreign Policy and Iran is a study of US foreign policy decision-making in relation to Iran and its implications for Middle Eastern relations. It offers a new assessment of US-Iranian relations by exploring the rationale, effectiveness and consequences of American policy towards Iran from the aftermath of the 1979 Iranian Revolution to the present day. As a key country in a turbulent region and the recipient of some of the most inconsistent treatment meted out during or after the Cold War, Iran has been both one of America's closest allies and an 'axis of evil' or 'rogue' state, targeted by covert action and contained by sanctions, diplomatic isolation and the threat of overt action. Moreover, since the attacks of 11 September 2001, Iran has played a significant role in the war on terror while also incurring American wrath for its links to international terror and its alleged pursuit of a nuclear weapons programme. US Foreign Policy and Iran will be of interest to students of US foreign policy, Iran, Middle Eastern Politics and international security in general Donette Murray is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Defence and International Affairs at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. She was awarded a PhD in International History by the University of Ulster in 1997.

No one seriously interested in the character of public knowledge and the quality of debate over American alliances can afford to ignore the complex link between press and policy and the ways in which mainstream journalism in the U.S. portrays a Third World ally. The case of Iran offers a particularly rich view of these dynamics and suggests that the press is far from fulfilling the watchdog role assigned it in democratic theory and popular imagination.

This book provides a fresh perspective on the origins of the confrontation between the US and Iran. It demonstrates that, contrary to the claims of Iran's leaders, there was no instinctive American hostility towards the Revolution, and explains why many assumptions guiding US policy were inappropriate for dealing with the new reality in Iran.

Iran refuses to relent in developing nuclear technology, despite U.N. sanctions. Rumors persist that Israel is drawing up plans for military strikes. Neither the emboldened Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad nor the embattled President Bush has relented in his war of words. How did we get here? Iran expert Ali Ansari sets the current crisis in the context of a long history of mutual antagonism. From the overthrow of Mosaddeq in 1953 to the hostage crisis in 1979 and, more recently, the Gulf War and the War in Iraq, both Iranian and American politicians have forged conflicting narratives about an “evil empire” lying half a world away-resulting in a mutual mistrust that may ultimately lead to war.