The Foreign Service Journal, March 2010

68 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / M A R C H 2 0 1 0 Tehran Incognita Understanding Iran: Everything You Need to Know, From Persia to the Islamic Republic, From Cyrus to Ahmadinejad William R. Polk, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009, $25, hardcover, 272 pages. R EVIEWED BY R OBERT V. K EELEY William R. Polk is a prolific writer on international affairs, diplomacy and domestic politics. In the past five years alone, he has published four books that could constitute a graduate course on the contemporary and historical Mid- dle East (two of which I have previ- ously reviewed for the Foreign Service Journal ): Understanding Iraq: The Whole Sweep of Iraqi History, from Genghis Khan’s Mongols to the Ottoman Turks to the BritishMandate to the American Occupation (Harper Collins, 2005) Out of Iraq: A Practical Plan for Withdrawal Now, with George Mc- Govern (Simon & Schuster, 2006) Violent Politics: A History of Insur- gency, Terrorism & Guerrilla War, from the American Revolution to Iraq (Harper Collins, 2007) And now, Understanding Iran. I have just checked with Amazon.com, and your total tuition will be a mere $51.85 (plus shipping and handling). In addition to a long career as a his- torian, much of it spent as a professor of Middle Eastern studies at the Uni- versity of Chicago, Polk was a member of the State Department’s Policy Plan- ning Office responsible for the Middle East and Central Asia during the Ken- nedy administration. He was also on the Crisis Management Committee during the Cuban Missile Crisis. This kind of background permits him to understand the perspectives of policymakers and those who imple- ment their decisions. Understanding Iran fully lives up to the promise of its title, giving us a thor- ough yet lively survey of a society that is moving quickly toward becoming the dominant power in the region. Polk reminds us that as much as Iranians chafe under the yoke of their current leaders, they still have bitter memories of generations of British, Russian and American espionage, invasion and dominance. There are important lessons to be learned from the mistakes of the past, and Polk teases them out of Iran’s long, rich history. In the process, he makes a strong case that it is not just now, but for decades to come that a true under- standing of Iran will be essential. Back in 2006, I attempted to per- suade the management of the Foreign Service Institute to give all employees receiving training en route to Baghdad a copy of Polk’s Understanding Iraq . I suggested that they could at least read some of its 213 pages during the flight there. My effort was predictably futile, but I stand by the suggestion. Similarly, while there is no immi- nent prospect of a resumption of diplo- matic relations, I would still urge FSI to buy copies of Understanding Iran for all employees who have any con- nection with U.S. policy toward Tehran. A final note: Your graduate course about theMiddle East will not be com- plete until you have also covered Afghanistan and South Asia. Fortu- itously, William Polk is currently work- ing on a book on that subject, tenta- tively titled Understanding Afghani- stan, set for publication later this year. Three-time ambassador and retired Foreign Service officer Robert V. Kee- ley operates Five and Ten Press, an in- dependent publishing company he founded to bring out original articles, essays and other short works of fiction and nonfiction that have been rejected or ignored by mainstream outlets. B OOKS Understanding Iran fully lives up to the promise of its title.