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The Iran Agenda: The Real Story of U.S. Policy and the Middle East Crisis

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Journalist Reese Erlich grew up in Los Angeles just south of UCLA. As a child he used to walk up Westwood Boulevard toward Westwood village, past a stockbroker's office and the Crest movie theater. At the time there was no Tehrangeles. The Westwood legal offices I visited last year to fix my Iranian passport mess used to house the ultra-right-wing John Birch Society. As an aborigine of sorts, Erlich has no grievances against the Iranians who have colonized the Westwood of his childhood. On the contrary, he seems to delight in the cultural upgrade. His latest book, The Iran Agenda: the real story of U.S. policy and the Middle East crisis, should however give the American reader a nostalgic lump in the throat. Not because of old memories of a neighborhood now transformed; but because this seasoned journalist writes in a tradition now mostly abandoned by the US media. Trustworthiness.

Erlich identifies his sources by name, and gives references which independently corroborate his statements. By contrast the average American's perception of Iran has been largely defined by "unidentified sources." The Iran Agenda begins in the real Tehran bazaar where Erlich--along with actor Sean Penn and columnist Norman Solomon--had put their journalistic "boots on the ground" to report on the Iran situation. Erlich mentions other American reporters in Iran, but he observes, "Most American reporters I met saw Iran as an evil society and a danger to the United States. While many expressed disagreement with President Bush's policies, they believed Iran was developing nuclear weapons that threatened America. In short, their views tracked the political consensus emanating from Washington. Rather than proceeding from reality, they filtered their reporting through a Washington lens. When a Washington official makes a statement, even a false one, the major media dutifully report it with few opposing sources."

Of course this is not news to we Iranians. The value of The Iran Agenda is its usefulness as a tool of argument in discussions with curious Americans who ask us to be their tour guides on the Iran subject. Most educated Iranians carry an overall knowledge of the Iran-US quarrel, from Mossadegh's overthow, to the hostage crisis, to the US Navy's shooting down an Iran Air passenger jet. The Iran-Iraq war, NPT, human rights violations, student protests, worker's union discontent, Ganji, Ebadi, Ossanlou, are all swimming somewhere in our data base. But it takes a professional like Erlich to organize these floating facts into an engaging story with a strong moral. To undo years of skilful propaganda, equal skill is needed. And Erlich is certainly a talented story teller.

While he informs us that the Kurdish PJAK guerrillas are funded by the US and Israel, Erlich simultaneously evokes a feeling of action and travel reminiscent of the colorful adventures of Tintin:

"The PJAK camps are located in inhospitable terrain. During winter months, the snowy roads are accessible only on foot or by tractor. Luckily the snow hadn't yet blanketed the area, and we drove up easily--if slowly--over winding dirt roads. Suddenly, young women in green pants in the distinctive Kurdish head scarf were walking along the road. They were female guerrillas. PJAK claims its troops are almost 50 percent women."

Erlich's very brief history of the Kurds updated me on some interesting statistics. For example, I was under the impression that Kurds were mostly Sunnis. This is true in general, but in Iran 50% of this minority is Shiite. This figure makes a difference in my thinking on the Kurdish issue.

Erlich goes on to remind his readers of other ethnic minorities, the Azeri, Baluchi and Arab Iranians, who could destabilize the Iranian regime. Little of this is intelligently discussed in the US media. For obvious reasons even the Iranian media tend to keep the lid on news of ethnic unrest.

Not all of Erlich's criticism targets mainstream media. He has harsh words of advice for Iran's exile media in his native Westwood backyard. He mentions Amir Taheri's infamous false report about a Majils law requiring Iranian Jews to wear a yellow stripe on their clothing. "With each phony or exaggerated story," Erlich warns, "the LA newscasters and commentators [who continued to play the story long after it was falsified] think they are helping the popular struggle against the Iranian government. But repeated over time, the distortions discredit the exile media and, by extension, all exile opposition." Erlich describes another, bitterly funny incident--the Hakha affair-- as being "something right out of the Keystone Kops." I can't find a web link that explains this fiasco nearly as well as Erlich's narrative.

Clarifying his own agenda in writing The Iran Agenda, Erlich says, "...I personally don't trust mainstream politicians, lobbyists, and think tank gurus to resolve anything soon. Nor do I trust the clerics in Tehran to stop their belligerence. A pro-peace, pro-democracy movement exists within Iran. I think people in the United States need to build one as well." It seems Westwood had earthy, smart people long before Iranians arrived.

In his opening pages of The Iran Agenda: The Real Story of U.S. Policy and the Middle East Crisis, Reese Erlich introduces you to the people of Iran and immediately makes you feel comfortable with them. You quickly get his sense for both the simplicity of their world and the complexity of the situation there. His discussions of the U.S.-Iranian relations since the 50's are historical and straightforward, free from the typical spin-and-bias of today's reporting. Despite the fact that his book brings you to the reality of just how far astray U.S. foreign policy has gone, it is an extremely enjoyable read.

Erlich makes sense out of all the forces that are present, be they global, regional or internal. He easily moves between religious histories, petroleum politics, ethnic minorities and media credibility with an objectivity that is rarely found in today's rush to war. His descriptions of blatant and alleged covert activities of several of the players makes one realize that there are many forms of `terrorism' currently being employed by our leaders to manipulate today's public opinion. His closing thought could not be more prophetic -

`If the governments of the United States and Iran won't make peace, the people of our two countries must.'

Bob Magnant is the author of The Last Transition... - a fact-based novel about Iran, Iraq and the Middle East...

A theocratic democracy? by Tim Redmond, Thursday September 20, 2007, San
Francisco Bay Guardian Online.

My old friend Reese Erlich is remarkably optimistic about Iran, which is a pleasant perspective. I'm glad somebody is.

In his insightful, if sometimes choppy, new book, The Iran Agenda: The Real Story of U.S. Policy and the Middle East Crisis, he offers an alternative view of a nation and a culture that has been either ignored or demonized by the mainstream press for more than 30 years. His basic thesis -- that US policy toward Tehran is moronic, driven by foolish politics, bad information, and greedy geopolitical aims -- is hard to dispute. His subtext -- that there's real hope for democracy in Iran -- is a bit of a tougher sell.

Erlich has done what few US journalists ever do: he's visited Iran, repeatedly, and taken the time to meet not just with government officials and activists but with ordinary Iranians. Almost across the board, they condemn the United States and support the Islamic state.

We're presented with "liberal" politicians -- which might be a bit of a stretch -- and radical activists, including Marxists, who offer a vision of a democratic Iran. Me, I'm dubious about any hope for theocratic democracy; as a proud atheist, I think that separation of church and state -- strict, inviolable separation -- is essential for any functioning democracy.

But Erlich's willing to give other cultures and ways of thinking a break, which is one of the main reasons he's such a good reporter. And in The Iran Agenda he presents a picture of a nation far more complex than the caricatures we've seen depicted by the administration and the evening news.

That's the real value of this book: you get a sense from a veteran journalist of what you've been missing all these years. Erlich tries to sort out the ethnic geopolitics of Iran and explain which groups are aligned with whom (and why the United States supports some of them). It's all somewhat dizzying, but that's part of the point. This situation is more complicated than most American opinion makers are willing to admit.

And for all that, it's a good read.

Hannes Artens is the author of The Writing on the Wall, the first anti-Iran-war novel.

At one of my discuss and book signing events for The Writing on the Wall I had the privilege to share the stage with Erlich. His enviable ability to explain the most complex intricacies of Iranian politics in just a few concise, laconic sentences, almost adopting the proverbial Spartan reputation for austerity to his illustrations, and yet enriching them with such a compelling storytelling and personal anecdotes, that the suspenseful excerpt I had read from my novel before paled in comparison, already fascinated me back then (right after the event I immediately set off to revise my script's flow). This clarity and conciseness in analysis and style is what may appeal most to novices to the intricacies of U.S.-Iranian relations, thus rendering The Iran Agenda the perfect introduction to the subject.

Contrary to many of us who write about Iran these days - guilty as charged - Erlich, a seasoned field veteran who has reported on Middle East crises for NPR, Radio Deutsche Welle, Mother Jones, The San Francisco Chronicle, and Dallas Morning News - to just a name a few - has frequently shuttled in and out of to Iran over the last years - once even accompanied by actor turned activist Sean Penn. Drawing upon this wealth of resources and experiences, Erlich provides us with a manifold kaleidoscope of impressions and insights from the bazaars of Tehran, a former traditional stronghold of the supporters of the Revolution where the harm caused by U.S. sanctions and international embargos is felt most these days, to the back yard offices of courageous NGOs and civil advocacy groups, to the mountain fortresses of Kurdish insurgents, and finally to the world of make-believe of 'Tehrangeles', where the exile community keeps plotting on schemes for regime change as realistic as Dick Cheney's (they're perceived so out of touch with how people in Iran really feel that they don't even receive funding from the State Department, who usually pours out the horn of plenty on every dubious diaspora group they get aware of).

It is in describing this triangular relationship between the indigenous Iranian opposition, the pipe dreams of Ahmed Chalabi-wannabes and the exile entourage of Reza Pahlavi, craving to trade their suburban Washington DC mansions for Niavaran Palace, and the U.S. employing PJAK (Party of a Free Life in Kurdistan, the Iranian PKK equivalent) and MEK (the Mujahideen e-Khalq, officially designated a terrorist organization by the State Department) as proxies in their covert war against the invidious Mullah regime where The Iran Agenda is at its strongest and offers some valuable, new insight to even versed pundits of U.S.-Iranian relations. In fact, Erlich's book is the first to problematize and discuss in greater detail Washington's utilization of Iran's ethnic minorities to destabilize the regime and actively finances splinter groups to launch terrorist attacks against Tehran, killing dozens of innocent civilians (this dirty covert war, reminding one of the CIA's activities in 1970 Cuba, was first uncovered in a 2006 The New Yorker article by Seymour Hersh). In assessing these forms of regime change Erlich and the Iranian human rights activists he has interviewed, most prominently Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Shirin Ebadi and independent journalism-icon Akbar Ganji, are equally clear and unsparing:

"Every opponent of the Iranian opposition that I spoke to criticized the disastrous impact of U.S. policies. When the United States periodically threatens military attacks, funds dissidents, and sponsors terrorism, the administration helps fuel anti-American nationalism, said Ganji.

"'Passing this [(85 million), part of the Iran Freedom and Support Act, N.B. H.A.] budget has made our work much more difficult and the work of the democratic forces much more cumbersome in Iran,' Ganji told me.
"Shirin Ebadi explained that Iranian activists also opposed unilateral U.S. economic sanctions that began under Jimmy Carter. The sanctions prohibit most trade, investment, and many cultural exchanges. 'Economic sanctions hurt people more than the government,' said Ebadi."

Beside the book's enlightening inroads into the maze of Iranian politics and the neocons' pathological traumas with the Islamic Republic, Erlich, who has earned quite a reputation as a forceful critic of corporate media in his first book, Target Iraq. What the News Media Didn't Tell You, also mercilessly reckons with his peers' coverage of Iran. In light of American corporate media having degenerated into court writers of this administration and the current Republican candidate, together with Vice President Cheney utilizing his actual Middle East "peace trip" to heavy-handedly beat the war drums again, Erlich's frankness about the media's role in distorting the public's picture of Iran as a bunch of crazed Mullahs trying to get their hands on a doomsday weapon, are more important now than ever. His tireless efforts to confront us with the other, the real Iran, and the cursory outline of the about-to-unfold drama's major actors in Tehran and Washington make The Iran Agenda a strongly recommended contribution, both as a first overview for curious beginners, but also in offering close observers some interesting facets they may not have been aware of yet.

Mr. Erlich has authored a text on the current situation in Iran and its impact on U.S. foreign policy. He examines the role of media and how he feels they have been co-opted by the current administration. Overall, however, his observations and subsequent arguments are made without the benefit of context. Going as far back as the Truman Administration, he berates inconsistencies in U.S. foreign policies towards Iran, yet the contexts in which these polices were made is never critically examined.

The end of the cold war, which previously had driven most U.S. foreign policy, necessitated the development of new foreign policies in response to the changing geopolitical environment. Mr. Erlich believes that a consistent policy is more important than adapting policy to the situation at hand and yet he later criticizes the United States for not changing its policy towards Iran due to changes in sentiment in the Middle East.

He fails to recognize that foreign policy analysis is only as good as the context in which it occurs. He vilifies the United States for the accidental downing of Iranian Air 655 over the Persian Gulf in 1988 by the USS Vincennes. Although he acknowledges the lack of evidence to indicate this was an intentional act, he fails to mention that the USS Stark was attacked by Iraqi aircraft less than a year earlier killing 37 and injuring 22 sailors. In his final chapter he identifies Virginia Senator James Webb, Jr. as a conservative republican, when in fact he is a democrat. Inconsistencies and lack of contextual analysis are pervasive throughout Mr. Erlich's text.

Although this book has some valid points that need to be considered when evaluating foreign policy, his one-sided arguments undermine his message and he is ultimately guilty of providing a single-minded argument much like that of which he accuses the administration and media of having.

I read this book and contacted the publisher requesting a meeting with Reese Erlich. He was kind enough to get back to me right away and we met at a coffee shop in Oakland Hills. During our meeting I asked him many questions and found him to be a true expert on Iran. In his book he represents an unbiased picture of Iran's past and a simple but realistic prescription for how the US and Iran can move toward a peaceful relationship. I loved his book, and after meeting him in person, developed a great deal of admiration for the man himself. I highly recommend this book to anyone who is interested in learning about the Middle East.
Mahbod Seraji