BOOK REVIEW 'Dialogue of the duff' US Foreign Policy and Iran by Donette Murray
Reviewed by Kaveh L Afrasiabi
This book falls midway between a scholarly analysis and journalistic
storytelling of the complex, convoluted and often dramatic relations between
the United States and Iran, nations that have lacked diplomatic ties since the
whirlwind Islamic Revolution of 1979. It is meant as the former, but on many
accounts it succeeds more as the latter.
A comprehensive study of this difficult subject, which the author calls "the
Iran syndrome", would naturally require insightful analyses of policy decisions
in Tehran as well as Washington, but this book's main focus is on the US's Iran
policy over the five
administrations preceding the Barack Obama presidency.
The book provides valuable and detailed insights, but falls short of doing full
justice to the subject, as it lacks an in-depth investigation of the Iranian
side. Despite this shortcoming, Murray's book - with its intimately detailed
account of how the US government has handled Iran over the past 30 years - is
an indispensable and timely addition to literature on US-Iran relations.
Divided into five chapters with a useful conclusion suggestively titled "the
carcass of dead policies", the book draws on a wealth of primary (eg,
interviews) and secondary sources to provide a sober assessment of the US's
Iran policies through the Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H W Bush, Bill
Clinton and George W Bush administrations.
The author identifies areas of success, such as Reagan's role in bringing the
Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s to an end, as well as failures, such as George W
Bush not pursuing rapprochement with Iran after the September 11, 2001,
attacks.
Throughout the book, a wealth of domestic and external factors, such as faulty
intelligence, personality clashes, competing interests, bureaucratic muddling
and misperceptions, are identified as the reasons underpinning the stubborn
impasse between the US and Iran.
The book would have benefited from an overarching theoretical framework and
some related hypotheses and assumptions put to test by the empirical mill. The
lack of such a framework results in a hodgepodge of insights into the likely
course of US-Iran relations that are neither illuminating nor made on a firm
footing. And the author simply adopts explanations offered by various former
top US officials that should have been carefully qualified or perhaps
theoretically filtered.
For example, ample historical evidence suggests that the Reagan administration
favored a stalemated war between Iran and Iraq (1980-1988), but Murray writes
that Reagan "wished to bring it to an expeditious end". (pg 42) The US's
failure to condemn Iraq's invasion of Iran in September 1980 and its delaying
tactics at the United Nations Security Council also evade the author's critical
scrutiny. However, she is on the mark when discussing the increasingly pro-Iraq
tilt of the US as that war dragged on.
In the chapter on Clinton's presidency and its "dual containment" approach, the
author delves into the role of Israel and pro-Israel interests in shaping the
US government's Iran policy, concluding that these "limited what the US could
do unilaterally with regard to Iran". (pg 95). However, she loses sight of this
in subsequent chapters, often presenting a lopsided picture that is
inadequately cognizant of how the "Jewish lobby" has influenced Washington's
approach toward Iran.
This issue was aptly described by two political scientists, Stephen Walt and
John Mearseheimer, in their book, The Jewish Lobby. Murray, on the other
hand, mostly sidesteps this controversial topic and prefers a more
straightforward explanation that treats the actual policymakers as independent
variables.
The author also persists with attributing peaceful intentions to the US,
without connecting the dots on US hegemony in the Middle East and Persian Gulf.
This does not do justice to the underlying reasons for the US-Iran hostility
over the past 30 years.
Any scholarly contribution on contemporary security issues in this troubled
region must probe the structural dimensions of the US-Iran conflict; its
emphasis on clashing interests and competing spheres of influence, but also its
coinciding areas of interests, such as Iran's concert with the US-led coalition
against Iraq during the Kuwait war of 1990-1991 - though this alliance expired
as the guns fell silent on this conflict.
Compared to its depiction of mostly noble Americans, the book is filled with
references to Iran's support of terrorism and role as a spoiler for Middle East
peace, without attempting to understand how Iran's post-revolutionary
strategies were tailored for the region and beyond.
According to Murray, talking past one another - "dialogue of the duff" - is
often a feature of US-Iran relations, attributing it to various factors such US
policymakers being distracted by other priorities as well as ignorance or
missed signals. At the same time, Murray argues that the White House under the
second Bush, "turned its back on several chances to explore the possibility of
improving its relations with Iran". (pg 141)
The author's concluding recommendation for future policy transparency is belied
by her insight elsewhere in the book that at least during the tenure of Bush
senior, "constructive ambiguity offered a degree of leeway that was helpful in
keeping Iran guessing about US intentions". (pg 139)
Arguably, this was not limited to that particular administration and, it in
fact continues to be a hallmark of US policy toward Iran. Even today under the
"engagement" plan of the Obama administration, it is far from given that Obama
has made a sea-change in the Iran policies he inherited, such as Bush's
authorization of covert action in Iran.
As is well known, the Iran nuclear standoff occupies center stage in the
tumultuous US-Iran relationship today, yet the book is thin in its treatment of
this subject and, worse, laden with the problematic assessment that the second
Bush administration nodded to Iran's uranium enrichment program and "condoned
the continuation of a process that could allow Iran to develop the expertise it
needed to weaponize its technology at some point in the future". (pg 142)
Both conclusions are questionable, given the weight of evidence that the second
Bush administration imposed unilateral and multilateral sanctions on Iran in
the hope of stopping those processes and bringing Iran's enrichment program to
a halt.
The failure of a policy to reach its intended consequences should not be
confused with the absence of such a policy.
In conclusion, Murray's book is valuable for revealing the complexities
involved in achieving a breakthrough in US-Iran relations, and it stands up as
a sharp warning against snap decisions and ill-conceived policies. However, it
offers no easy answers on how to achieve a meaningful success in these
relations, and therein lie its main strengths and weaknesses.
US Foreign Policy and Iran: American-Iranian Relations Since the Islamic
Revolution by Donette Murray. Routledge Books, November 2009. ISBN:
978-0-415-39406-2. Price $115.00, 159 pages, with notes, bibliography and index
247.
Kaveh L Afrasiabi, PhD, is the author of After Khomeini: New
Directions in Iran's Foreign Policy (Westview Press) . For his Wikipedia entry,
click here. His
latest book,
Reading In Iran Foreign Policy After September 11 (BookSurge Publishing
, October 23, 2008) is now available.
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Divided into five chapters with a useful conclusion suggestively titled "the
carcass of dead policies", the book draws on a wealth of primary (eg,
interviews) and secondary sources to provide a sober assessment of the US's
Iran policies through the Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H W Bush, Bill
Clinton and George W Bush administrations.
