Guardians of the Revolution: Iran and the World in the Age of the Ayatollahs Reprint Edition

by Ray Takeyh (Author)

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ISBN-13: 978-0199754106

ISBN-10: 0199754101

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For over a quarter century, Iran has been one of America's chief nemeses. Ever since Ayatollah Khomeini overthrew the Shah in 1979, the relationship between the two nations has been antagonistic: revolutionary guards chanting against the Great Satan, Bush fulminating against the Axis of Evil,
Iranian support for Hezbollah, and President Ahmadinejad blaming the U.S. for the world's ills.

The unending war of words suggests an intractable divide between Iran and the West, one that may very well lead to a shooting war in the near future. But as Ray Takeyh shows in this accessible and authoritative history of Iran's relations with the world since the revolution, behind the famous
personalities and extremist slogans is a nation that is far more pragmatic--and complex--than many in the West have been led to believe. Takeyh explodes many of our simplistic myths of Iran as an intransigently Islamist foe of the West. Tracing the course of Iranian policy since the 1979 revolution,
Takeyh identifies four distinct periods: the revolutionary era of the 1980s, the tempered gradualism following the death of Khomeini and the end of the Iran-Iraq war in 1989, the "reformist" period from 1997-2005 under President Khatami, and the shift toward confrontation and radicalism since the
election of President Ahmadinejad in 2005.

Takeyh shows that three powerful forces--Islamism, pragmatism, and great power pretensions--have competed in each of these periods, and that Iran's often paradoxical policies are in reality a series of compromises between the hardliners and the moderates, often with wild oscillations between
pragmatism and ideological dogmatism. The U.S.'s task, Takeyh argues, is to find strategies that address Iran's objectionable behavior without demonizing this key player in an increasingly vital and volatile region. With its clear-sighted grasp of both nuance and historical sweep, Guardians of the
Revolution will stand as the standard work on this controversial--and central--actor in world politics for years to come.

Ray Takeyh
75
Hardcover
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Superb...anyone wishing to understand why restored American-Iranian ties are so elusive, but also so critical, should turn to this important work, a riveting and consistently insightful study of revolutionary Iran and its still troubled place in the world."--New York Times

"Elegant anatomy of Iran's foreign policy since 1979."--Malise Ruthven, New York Review of Books

"An excellent, straightforward primer for anyone who has not explored Iran's history before and wants a fair and unsparing portrayal of its ambitions and a keen understanding of its internal politics."--The Jerusalem Post

"Lucidly written... Recommended for students and general readers who are tracking the U.S.-Iranian relationship."--Library Journal

"Guardians of the Revolution is a "must read' for policy makers in Iran, in the United States, and throughout the world. Thirty years after the Revolution, this is the only comprehensive book in any language on the dynamics of change in Iranian domestic and foreign policy since the revolution.
Timely and balanced, it should command the attention of the Obama administration in reviewing America's policy toward Iran."--R. K. Ramazani, Edward R. Stettinius Professor of Government, University of Virginia

"Ray Takeyh is one of our country's most insightful observers of Iran. In this book, he offers an interesting portrait of how and why Iran's approach to the world has evolved since the revolution. His explanations of the interplay of different groups within the elite and the rise of the new right
are thought provoking and raise important questions for policy-makers. If one wants to understand the different forces affecting Iranian foreign policy, Takeyh's book is a good place to start."--Dennis Ross, author of Statecraft: And How to Restore America's Standing in the World

"Ray Takeyh has given us a succinct, well-written, and cool-headed analysis of Iran's foreign policy since the 1979 revolution. This book should be read by academics working on contemporary Iran as well as by foreign-policy experts in Washington grappling with the issue of how to deal with
Tehran."--Ervand Abrahamian, author of A History of Modern Iran

" A useful aid.... [This book] provides a narrative background to the insights in his earlier Hidden Iran. Takeyh's two books together offer as instructive a portrait as one can find of politics in Tehran and why it generates sometimes maddening Iranian postures toward the outside world."--The
National Interest

"Anyone who wants to understand whats going on in Iran must read the terrific ... Guardians of the Revolution ... a lucid, clear-headed explanation of Irans perplexing foreign policy since 1979."--Daily Beast

"An excellent way to take the measure of revolutionary Iran today is to read this up-to-date, well-researched, and perceptive history of its foreign policy since 1979."--Foreign Affairs

"[An] excellent history of Iran's foreign and security policies in the three decades since the revolution.... A highly successful balancing act between breadth and depth...[and] a first-class book."--Middle East Journal Review

About the Author

Ray Takeyh is a Senior Fellow for Middle Eastern Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations and the author of Hidden Iran and The Origins of the Eisenhower Doctrine . He lives near Washington, DC.

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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Oxford University Press; Reprint edition (April 8, 2011)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 316 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0199754101
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0199754106
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 15.4 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 9.1 x 6 x 1 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #2,748,100 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #832 in Public Affairs
- #1,178 in Middle Eastern History (Books)
- #1,237 in Iran History

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David Cash

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on June 1, 2018

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Great book, I used it as resource material for my research paper in a graduate course.

One person found this helpful

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D. Harris

Already outdated?

Reviewed in the United States on November 30, 2010

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The book was written before the latest events in Iran -- namely the second "election" of Ahmadinejad, and the following suppression of the opponents of the authoritarian elements that are in power. They have only increased their power -- for now. These developments are not covered in the book.

3 people found this helpful

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Roger Berlind

Useful analysis of Iranian regime

Reviewed in the United States on January 1, 2010

"Guardians of the Revolution" provides useful analysis of the Iranian regime since the founding of the Islamic Republic. Takeyh does a good job describing the various factions within Iran's government and the challenges that moderates faced when trying to normalize relations with the West. I have not read any other books on Iran, so I can't really judge the accuracy of Takeyh's portrait of Iran. But my impression is that he does know Iran very well.

My main complaint about the book is that Takeyh fails to properly set the stage for the benefit of readers who don't already know the history of Iran prior to the revolution. While he does provide some background on the father of the revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini, he says very little about the regime of the Shah which the United States supported. Doing this would have helped readers better understand the antagonism that many in Iran feel toward the United States. While the policy makers in the West who this book is targeted to might already know the full history of Iran, the average reader probably does not.

7 people found this helpful

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Philip Hurst

Much better than earlier reviews suggest.

Reviewed in the United States on September 22, 2009

Iran seems to be a topic that provokes strong, if not extreme, responses in readers. Hence the terse, highly unfavourable reviews already posted here on Amazon. I have given this book 5 stars because I strongly disagree with the abuse contained in those reviews, although if they had been more reasonable and considered, instead of hysterical, I would probably give the book 4 stars: very good but not ground-breaking.

Dr Takeyh has written a book with the policymakers in Washington very much in mind, focussing as he does on post-revolutionary Iran's foreign relations and its relations with the US in particular. I'm not interested in whether the author is an adviser to Obama, Sarkozy or Putin: what interests me is what he has written. If I were an American policymaker, or American Iran wonk, I might have different views on the book, but the book's great value to me is its succinct account of the development of Ayatollah Khomeini's thinking on the role of the clergy in an Islamic state, his role in forging the 1979 revolution, and the force of his personality that created a powerful legacy that resonates today, in the Iran of the 2009 presidential elections and their aftermath. Unlike Con Coughlin's recent "Khomeini's Ghost", which is written in a free-flowing, somewhat journalistic style (which is not to criticise it), Takeyh's approach is measured, considered, bordering on the prescriptive. Concurrently with the foreign policy considerations, he examines Iran post-1979 as falling into four distinct periods, more or less coinciding with the period up until Khomeini's death, the the three presidencies that followed: Rafsanjani, Khatami, and Ahmadinejad, each showing different approaches to the world and to the internal business of government in a revolutionary society. I found his explication of the origins of Khomeini's political "philosophy" (if one can call it that) to be more persuasive and realistic than that of Ervand Abrahamian in "Khomeinism", who seems to be at pains to depict the ayatollah not as a fanatic but as a "populist", almost as though to de-demonize him. Takeyh adverts to the populist elements in Khomeini's vision, but doesn't downplay the ruthlessness and, at times, duplicity, of the old man to achieve his single-minded aim of toppling the Persian monarchy. Certainly the creation of any sort of republican democracy was the last thing in Khomeini's mind. It seems that the revolutionaries, and Khomeini among them, had no ideas about governing the country other than getting rid of the Shah, and then ridding themselves of inconvenient rival revolutionary or liberal rivals. Of economics, diplomacy, military strategy, civil governance and all the other appurtenances of the modern state, Khomeini and his closest supporters, many of whom remain at or near the top of the Iranian government/theocracy today, seem to have been completely ignorant, even not interested. Dr Takeyh is good on the Iran-Iraq war. He also reassesses the significance of President Khatami's two terms as a "reformist" president, and shows clearly how the aspirations of Khatami and his millions of supporters were progressively thwarted and reversed by the conservative elements in the theocratic side of the complex matrix that Khomeini handed down as the constitution of Iran. What would be interesting would be to read Dr Takeyh's take on the 2009 presidential elections.

"Guardians of the Revolution" is no easy read, but repays the effort of reading carefully. What I did find irritating, however, is that Takeyh insists, almost petulantly, in transliterating fairly well-known Arabic or Persian names into unfamiliar forms, e.g., Saddam Huseyn (who he, you may ask?), Ayatollah Bihishti (Beheshti), Ayatollah Muntaziri (Montazeri). It's only a small criticism, however.

20 people found this helpful

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Kenneth

The book is a good one, but the narration is terribly confusing

Reviewed in the United States on September 7, 2015

The book is a good one, but the narration is terribly confusing! How many ways can you pronounce Ruhollah Khomeini? It's really confusing, in that there are other major players in Iran with similar names...

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Veritas

Imbalanced

Reviewed in the United States on July 31, 2009

I agree with the previous reviewer. In addition, the author once again does not pay serious attention to Iran's offer to negotiate all issues in 2003 and the Bush administration's rejection of that offer. I found recent books on Iran by William O. Beeman, Trita Parsi, and Thomas R. Mattair more valuable.

13 people found this helpful

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Sam Maktaba

Disappointing Effort

Reviewed in the United States on June 16, 2009

I liked Ray Takeyh's Hidden Iran and some of his recent op-eds are fairly reasoned and pragmatic -- but this book featured a heavy dose of American and Israeli government do-no-wrong exceptionalism. I am surprised that two very prominent Iranian historians would endorse this book, not surprised to see Dennis Ross's recommendation. Very disappointing effort -- in many cases the analysis is far more sensational than scholarly.

14 people found this helpful

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KL Mersin

Superficial and sensational

Reviewed in the United States on August 4, 2009

I bought the book because I had read that the author is an advisor to President Barack Obama on Iran. I was disappointed by the superficial and sensational character of this work. Clearly, Takeyh knows very little about Iran, outside the usual stuff that one finds in Western publications. I hope Obama has other advisors on this sensitive issue.

7 people found this helpful

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Top reviews from other countries

Adrian J. Smith

A revealing, and utterly gripping account of Iran's Revolutionary Regime

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 29, 2011

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As one would expect from a Council of Foreign Relations publication, Guardians of the Revolution not only fails to disappoint, but delivers immeasurably in its chronicling and analysis of post 1979 Iran.
Speaking as a post Graduate who wrote an MA Dissertation on Iran, this highly readable volume has delivered a great deal of insight into, what was for myself at least, a very familiar subject matter.
Guardians of the Revolution has the revelatory aspect rarely found in modern scholarship, comparable to insights that are delivered upon the opening of archives. While dealing primarily with the 1979 Revolution and its aftermath, much greater insight is shed upon the earlier life of Khomeini. We learn how Khomeini was able to seize power in the Revolution and move it in his direction, how he was able to consolidate his hold on power, and why the political system he founded lives to this day.
Much insight is given in the post Khomeini era of Rafsanjani and later Khatami, but a curious insight is given into the rise of "The New Right." The ubiquitous Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is only one of many vanguards of the Revolution who cut their teeth in the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. This new elite contrasts to the Revolutionary elite as they are not of clerical stock, rather veterans of the conflict with Iraq, and frequently, former members of the Revolutionary Guard. The rise of the new right is something the West failed to anticipate, and it is aptly explored by Takeyh in the latter part of the book.
On the whole, Guardians of the Revolution is not just an insightful exploration of Iran's Revolution and the regime it created, it is a highly readable and page turning volume that one struggles to put down, and leaves one wanting more after the final page has been turned.
In short a devastating account of modern Iran, and one of the best political science books I have read in recent years.

2 people found this helpful

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Guardians of the Revolution: Iran and the World in the Age of the Ayatollahs Reprint Edition

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