Persian Dreams: Moscow and Tehran Since the Fall of the Shah [Hardcover]

John W. Parker (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 1597972363 | ISBN-13: 978-1597972369 | Publication Date: November 30, 2008

Moscow’s ties with the Islamic Republic of Iran underwent dramatic fluctuations following Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s triumphant return to Tehran in 1979. After a prolonged implosion, they fitfully expanded, shaped not only by the rush of current events but by centuries of ingrained practices and prejudices. By summer 2006, as Iran forged ahead with its nuclear program and Shia-based forces flexed their muscles across the Middle East, Russian-Iranian relations again appeared to be on the threshold of an entirely new dynamic.

Drawing on firsthand interviews as well as primary and secondary sources, John Parker delineates Moscow’s motives and approaches to dealing with the resurgent Tehran, weaving into the public record the recollections and analyses of Russian politicians, diplomats, and experts who dealt directly with Iran both under the Pahlavi monarchy and after the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Parker also emphasizes other touchstones of relations between the two countries, including their complex dealings in 1992 immediately after the Soviet Union’s collapse and when they backed opposing sides in the civil war in Tajikistan yet nourished mutual interests on other issues. The depth of his analysis sheds light on the more recent repercussions of the September 11 terrorist attacks for Afghanistan and Iraq, for the Middle East as a whole, and for Iran’s accelerating nuclear program.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

John W. Parker is the chief of the Division for Caucasus and Central Asia in the Office for Russian and Eurasian Analysis at the Bureau of Intelligence and Research within the U.S. Department of State. During the final years of the Soviet Union, he served in the American Embassy in Moscow as the chief of the political/internal section (1989–91). In the 1980s he was an analyst of Soviet foreign policy in the Office for Soviet and East European Analysis at the U.S. Department of State. He has also been a scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and at the Brookings Institution. Parker is the author of Kremlin in Transition, two volumes. He lives in Arlington, Virginia.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 438 pages
• Publisher: Potomac Books Inc. (November 30, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1597972363
• ISBN-13: 978-1597972369
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,040,153 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars In Depth Investigation of Russia's Relationship with Iran, January 24, 2010

By 

Roger D. Launius "Historian" (Washington, D.C., United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Persian Dreams: Moscow and Tehran Since the Fall of the Shah (Hardcover)

John Parker's book is an exceptional analysis of the historically close ties between Russia/Soviet Union and Iran. In this case, it concentrates on the post-Shah experience and the policies that have dominated relations between the Ayatollah Khomeini and his successors and various Russian leaders. Parker is an old-Central Asian hand at the State Department and his analysis of the complex underpinnings of this relationship is telling. He emphasizes the dramatic revolution of 1979, the demise of the Soviet Union and how it affected the status quo, the civil war in Tajikistan, and especially the post 9/11 experience up to and including the debate over Iran's nuclear development program. It is a must read for those seriously interested in what is taking place in Iran in the twenty-first century.

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Extraordinarily Meticulous Research, November 24, 2009

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Jazz It Up Baby - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Persian Dreams: Moscow and Tehran Since the Fall of the Shah (Hardcover)

As Patrick Clawson mentioned in the Fall 2009 edition of the Middle East Quarterly, each of us looks at the world through our own glasses. The same developments can appear quite differently when examined through a different set of eyes. Parker, a division chief at the U.S. Department of State Bureau of Intelligence and Research, situates Iranian-Russian relations within the context of Russian politics, in which U.S. concerns are often peripheral or irrelevant. He shows how Moscow's concerns were, on the whole, entirely different from those of Washington. Russia was preoccupied by developments that are usually given only glancing reference in U.S. eyes--in particular, the 1992-97 civil war in Tajikistan--while it relegated to second-order importance the U.S.-centric 1990-91 confrontation with Saddam Hussein over Kuwait. The Russian reading makes sense when viewing the world from Moscow. In its first (and bloodiest) year, the Tajik civil war resulted in 25,000 deaths and threatened to spill over into several other Central Asian states, making it much more important to Russia than the events in far-off Kuwait.

Parker has done extraordinarily meticulous research including many interviews with key Russian actors, and he makes careful comparisons between what various Russian politicians wrote or said. He structures his account around Russia's changing political scene and its shifting interests. For an American used to thinking of the United States as the indispensable superpower of the post-Cold-War era, it can be humbling to realize that Russia was pursuing an agenda with Iran without much reference to Washington's concerns. Moscow's motives in its relations with Tehran were not intended to block Washington but arose simply from insufficient concern about the U.S. agenda--Russia's attention was focused on other issues.

To be sure, the United States has often played an important role in Russia-Islamic Republic relations, but the reasons seem usually to have been Iran's interests rather than Russia's. In particular, it was to check Washington that Iran reached out to the USSR for a strategic relationship in 1989, a relationship about which Moscow was never particularly excited. In any event, the relationship did not last long; the collapse of the Soviet Union and Iran's economic difficulties overtook the plans for rebuilding the Iranian military with Soviet arms. Another interesting U.S. role was that played in Iran's 1983 vicious repression of the pro-Soviet Tudeh Party in 1983 and the related expulsion of top Soviet diplomats, which were based on information passed to Tehran by the CIA after the defection to the U.K. of a Soviet KGB agent in Iran.

Parker's concluding chapter presents convincing evidence that Russia is and will remain vastly more important to Iran than Iran is to Russia. The Islamic Republic needs a counterweight to the United States while Russia sees Iran as a sometimes problematic country, which can be of use on some occasions and on some issues.