The Last Shah: America, Iran, and the Fall of the Pahlavi Dynasty by Ray Takeyh (review)

Writing about political history can hardly ever be neutral, least of all political histories of nation-states with overlapping civili-zational identities and intersecting political imaginaries stretching back to time immemorial. As with any interpretive enterprise, the merits of the case at hand are determined as much by the strength of evidence presented as they are by marshaling pertinent structures of persuasion. It is to Ray Takeyh's credit that, from the dedication page to its concluding sentence, The Last Shah eschews any pretensions to political neutrality. Takeyh is not interested in merely describing—as Iran scholars tend to do—the wide array of forces that toppled the Pahlavi dynasty, but he also bears his judgment on the omnipresent corruption, negligence, diffidence, and autocratic tendencies that overwhelmed the Pahlavi state over time and led to an even bigger calamity in the form of the Islamic Republic.

The book begins with a familiar question that has preoccupied scholars of modern Iranian politics for over four decades: "Why did Iran have a revolution in 1979?" Takeyh maintains that existing responses to this question (e.g., the inherent weakness of Mohammad Reza Shah, the decadence of the ruling elite, inconsistent American support, the swelling ranks of the anti-Pahlavi coalition, the cunning of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, etc.) are all "true but insufficient." What the standard accounts fail to properly contextualize, he argues, is the entirety of the shah's tortuous path to perdition, beginning with the forced abdication of his formidable father, Reza Shah, in 1941. Indeed, nearly all social science and historical inquiries into the origins of the 1979 revolution focus either on a narrow 15-year time horizon (roughly from the so-called White Revolution reforms launched in 1963) or on a sweeping timeline that stretches back to the stalled Constitutional Revolution in 1906–11. Focusing the timeline on the entirety of the shah's tenure instead enables Takeyh to recast his inquiry as a critical examination of the factors—foreign and domestic—that led to the gradual loss of legitimacy and eventual demise of the institution of the monarchy in Iran (and not merely the triumph of revolutionaries).

Over the course of nine chapters, The Last Shah reconstructs the central dramas of the post-1941 Pahlavi state through a compelling narrative structure that illuminates the dialectic between the quest for internal political legitimacy on one hand and great power rivalries over Iran on the other. This framework enables Takeyh to cast light upon the merits and shortcomings of a cadre of Iranian statesmen who were pivotal in shaping the trajectory of Iran's modern political development. Of these, three premiers were especially consequential during the first half of Mohammad Reza Shah's reign: the "clever" Mohammad 'Ali Forughi, who dexterously preserved Iran's sovereign rights after the Anglo-Soviet occupation of Iran, thanks to Reza Shah's "German-tilted neutrality" in the Second World War (p. 14); the "talented" Ahmad Qavam, who "outwitted" the Soviets in the crisis over oil concessions in Azerbaijan and correctly adjudged American support as crucial for ensuring Iran's independence (p. 49); and the "towering figure" of Mohammad Mosaddeq (p. 66), whose persistent drive for oil nationalization— and the Anglo-American-engineered coup that deposed him for it—would be immortalized as the avatar for struggles over sovereignty and constitutionalism in modern Iran. Takeyh recounts with analytical acuity the delicate balance each of these figures had to maintain between self-preservation and the imperatives of national self-determination, and he is especially unforgiving if they, or other figures and groups (e.g., the communist Tudeh Party, leaders of the National Front, senior clergy, or the shah himself) upset this balance out of ideological malice, pride, or sheer personal greed (separate but intersecting factors, which over time only augmented revolutionary resentments).

The shah's own leadership profile and record come into greater focus in the second half...