Showing posts with label Going To Tehran. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Going To Tehran. Show all posts
Sunday, August 18, 2013
"Going to Tehran" being published in paperback
To date the most important book written on the Islamic Republic of Iran, "Going to Tehran" by Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett to be released in paperback this coming December 31, 2013. Paperback edition appears with a new subtitle "Why America Must Accept the Islamic Republic of Iran" and a new afterword. Pre-ordering available HERE.
Sunday, March 17, 2013
New extensive and worthwhile review of 'Going to Tehran'
![]() |
Flynt Leverett. |
Uskowi on Iran had earlier this year extensively reviewed the Leverett's work in a piece entitled 'The Persian Gulf Facade'.
Mr. Milani aptly summarizes that:
When Going to Tehran describes Iran, it often reads like a reincarnation of the sad Soviet-era tradition of “Potemkin village” panegyrics. (Dictionaries define the term “Potemkin village” as an “impressive façade or show designed to hide an undesirable fact or condition.”)
This author is forced to concede that the following paragraph in Mr. Milani's review aptly sums up the Leverett's collective obscurantist politics, stances and blithesome arrogance better than he has up until this point been able to:
The Leveretts rightly dismiss the view of the regime in Tehran as composed only of suicidal messianic zealots, yet there is, ironically, a strong messianic subtext to their own narrative. By their reckoning, every American administration since Carter, the British and French governments, Israel, the IAEA (which has referred Iran to the United Nations), the UN (which has imposed sanctions on Iran), the Western media, all the Iranian scholars, activists, writers, poets, politicians, and past IRGC commanders who reject the status quo, the political prisoners in Iran who defiantly smuggle letters out of prison and describe the brutal nature of the despotism in today’s Iran—all these people have got it wrong. Only the Leveretts accurately understand the nature of the regime in Iran and only they have the solution to the quandary of American-Iranian relations.
Read the entire review HERE.
Saturday, March 2, 2013
"Going to Tehran" or Not!
By: Jabbar Fazeli, MD
LAURA SECOR wrote a book review of "Going to Tehran" titles "The Iran Syndrome" (1)
Published: March 1, 2013
Here a few excerpts from her review:
Photo source: Parsart.com
LAURA SECOR wrote a book review of "Going to Tehran" titles "The Iran Syndrome" (1)
Published: March 1, 2013
Here a few excerpts from her review:
"There is much to be said for understanding how the Islamic Republic of Iran sees itself on the international stage. We make little sense of history, and less progress toward resolving our conflicts, when we demonize our adversary and ascribe to him dark motives and irrational thoughts. Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett, veterans of the State Department and the National Security Council, might have written a book that made a powerful case for empathy in foreign policy. They would have devoted much of it to illuminating Iran’s strategic interests and its view of history. They might have done so while observing, as they have elsewhere, that American policy must not be blinded by sentimentality about Iranian human rights and democratic aspirations — concerns, they could suggest, that have no place in the cold calculus of global strategy. Whatever we think of the Islamic Republic, the Leveretts might argue, it is the policy maker’s job to understand it as it is, not as he would like it to be."
"They [the authors] accept the perspective of the Iranian government with regard to both its foreign policy and its internal affairs. Rather than delivering a corrective to the one-sided view from Washington, they deliver its mirror image."
"They assert (without evidence) that virtually all the Iranians who took to the streets in 2009 came from one rich, irrelevant area of Tehran. As for the young woman, Neda Agha Soltan, whose death by sniper fire was captured on a video seen around the world, the Leveretts give credence to the government line that she was actually shot by provocateurs in a deliberate effort to frame the Iranian security forces and fan rebellion."
"If the Leveretts were urging caution in assessing the true desires of a bitterly divided population whose opinions cannot be credibly studied on a large scale, it would be a point well taken. But that is not the Leveretts’ agenda. Rather, they purport to know how the Iranian people think. And it turns out that they think exactly like their government."
"On the basis of opinion polls taken under repressive conditions, the Leveretts write that most Iranians support their government’s crackdown on protesters after the 2009 election. They claim that Iranians overwhelmingly believe in the divine right of the clerics to rule, and happily accept the conservative clerics’ role in choosing the candidates who can stand for elections. As evidence of popular satisfaction with the political process, the Leveretts cite official election turnout statistics, including those from last year’s parliamentary election, which the state-controlled news media published the day before the vote. At one point the Leveretts cite, and quote at length, a personal e-mail from an unnamed 'defender of the system' explaining what 'the overwhelming majority of Iranians believe.' "
"The concluding pages of “Going to Tehran”argue that American policy makers cannot resolve their impasse with Iran’s government so long as they imagine they can isolate it, strangle it, bombard it, dislodge it or simply wait for it to fall. Rather, a visionary American administration should take the Islamic Republic seriously as a strategic partner and negotiate a comprehensive agreement covering all outstanding issues between the two nations."
"The Leveretts compare such a diplomatic enterprise with President Richard Nixon’s opening to China. They suggest that outreach would start with assurances that the United States will not seek to invade or topple the Islamic Republic; that Iran can enrich uranium on its own soil, but with international safeguards; and that the Arab-Israeli peace process will include the Iranians and take account of Iranian interests. The Leveretts are less clear on what they would require of the Iranians in exchange, other than 'a reciprocal Iranian commitment to resolve — or, where resolution is not possible, to manage — outstanding bilateral differences through diplomacy and negotiation.' "
“Going to Tehran” is too one-sided to illuminate much about the history of relations between the United States and Iran. For that, readers would be well advised to pick up 'Becoming Enemies,' a fascinating collection of declassified documents and expert and participant commentary from the time of the Iran-Iraq war, co-authored by six scholars."
"Its authors have bound a value judgment about the Islamic Republic to their own foreign policy prescription, which is for diplomatic engagement, and so they presume that their critics do likewise, marrying a critical perspective on the Islamic Republic’s domestic behavior to a call for war. In the end the Leveretts furnish a potent reminder — and example — of how political agendas have distorted our views of Iran and deepened our estrangement."
References:
(1) http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/03/books/review/going-to-tehran-by-flynt-leverett-and-hillary-mann-leverett.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&smid=tw-sharePhoto source: Parsart.com
Thursday, February 7, 2013
Nima Shirazi's take on a book review of "Going to Tehran"
What is actually a response to an "Iran expert's" review of the Leverett's new book on U.S. policy advocacy toward the Islamic Republic of Iran, "Going to Tehran", Nima Shirazi in effect has produced an outstanding review of his own. Excerpts:
If there’s one thing mainstream "Iran experts" hate, it’s well-credentialed, experienced analysts who dare challenge Beltway orthodoxies, buck conventional wisdom and demythologize the banal, bromidic and Manichean foreign policy narrative of the United States government and its obedient media. Such perspectives are shunned by "serious" scholars who play by the rules they and their former bosses themselves wrote; those propounding such subversive ideas are likewise excoriated and banished, labeled apostates and attacked personally for failing to fall in line.
Enter Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett, two former National Security Council officials, who have long questioned the wisdom and efficacy of the past thirty years of U.S. policy towards Iran. Their new expertly researched and meticulously-sourced book, Going to Tehran: Why the United States Must Come to Terms with the Islamic Republic of Iran, details and debunks numerous propagandized myths and delusional misunderstandings that many Americans have been led to believe about the country that is consistently referred to by our politicians and pundits as "the world’s most dangerous state." The Leveretts argue that, by at least taking into account the Iranian side of things and reviewing the misguided, myopic and unsustainable American policies toward Iran, the groundwork may be laid for a constructive and beneficial change of course for both nations; by engaging openly and acknowledging past grievances – rather than ignoring, justifying or ridiculing them – a new future is possible, one without threats or war, without sabotage and cyberattacks, without demonization and demagoguery.Nima also writes at length about the issue of human rights inside Iran. The young man is quite articulate, and his entire response to the "iran expert's" review is a must read, at AntiWar.com or click HERE to be directed toward his blog post on the subject.
Labels:
Antiwar.com,
Going To Tehran,
Leveretts,
Nima Shirazi
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)