56 NOVEMBER-DECEMBER 2025 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL IRAN’S REVOLUTION AND Foreign Service Heroes A REVIEW ESSAY A new book on U.S.-Iran relations and the Iranian Revolution spotlights the outstanding work of career diplomats. BY JOHN LIMBERT John Limbert is a retired Foreign Service officer, academic, and author. During a 34-year diplomatic career, he served mostly in the Middle East and Islamic Africa (including two tours in Iraq), was ambassador to the Islamic Republic of Mauritania (2000-2003), and served as president of the American Foreign Service Association (20032005), retiring from the post of Dean of the FSI language school in 2006. In retirement, he was brought back to serve as the first deputy assistant secretary of State for Iranian affairs (2009-2010). He was among the last American diplomats to serve in Iran, where he was held hostage from 1979 to 1981. He has authored numerous books and articles on Middle Eastern topics and a novel, Believers, co-authored with Foreign Service colleague Ambassador Marc Grossman. His most recent work, co-authored with Professor Mansour Farhang, is A Modern Theocracy (Mazda Press, 2025). Events in Iran almost never make for cheery reading, especially when the story includes the U.S. government. Scott Anderson’s new book, King of Kings, on the Iranian Revolution and U.S.-Iranian relations during the 1970s, tells another sad story that does little credit to its many actors, both American and Iranian. As the title says, this is a story of “hubris, delusion, and catastrophic miscalculations.” Just one such was President Jimmy Carter’s disastrous decision to admit the ailing Shah of Iran to the United States and the subsequent occupation of the U.S. embassy, which cost Carter his presidency and pushed Iran’s revolution on the road to brutal theocracy. A fresh and well-researched look at the Iranian Revolution—an event that changed the world’s geopolitical equations dramatically and in ways we still grapple with today—is certainly welcome. For King of Kings, Anderson relied largely on extensive interviews with a limited number of participants (members of the shah’s family and court, Iranian political figures, and U.S. diplomats) and other original sources. As he says in the preface: “It is my hope that by focusing on the actions and experiences of that small cast of people who resided in or were eyewitness to the inner circles of the revolution, I might both tell a new version of an old tale and begin to answer some of the riddles of why the Iranian Revolution played out as it did.” Arguably, he succeeds in this. But this book has, in my view, another very important dimension: Anderson’s account shines light on individual Foreign Service officers on the front lines in the Iran crisis who, when placed in an impossible situation, responded as their oaths of office demanded—with honor, insight, and courage. In documenting these diplomats’ professionalism, dedication, and honesty, his book is a highly readable antidote to the current FEATURE
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