Revolutionary Iran: Challenge and Response in the Middle East (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 229 conferences. East Asian Security is a worthwhile, pragmatic overview of the current strategic issues that plague the region, issues that should be considered during such trilateral meetings. Revolutionary Iran: Challenge and Response in the Middle East. By R.K. Ramazani. Baltimore, Md.: TheJohns Hopkins University Press, 1986. 311 pp. $27.50/cloth. Reviewed by Moiara Ruehsen, M.A. candidate, SAIS. "It is all a question of taste," said Mr. Ferdousi, the carpet seller in Ryszard Kapuscinski's Shah ofShahs. "The world would look far different if a few more people had a drop more taste. In all horrors, like lying, treachery, theft, and informing, [there is] a common denominator — such things are done by people with no taste." R.K. Ramazani's Revolutionary Iran: Challenge and Response in the Middle East is more than a thorough examination of the regional and global reverberations of the Iranian Revolution and the Iran-Iraq war. It is also a testament to political taste — more specifically, to refinement and tact in the realm of foreign-policy decisions. All of the characters in Ramazani's Revolutionary Iran—Saudi Arabia, the smaller gulfsheikhdoms, Syria, Israel, the United States, and the USSR — have maintained a posture of restraint vis-à-vis Iran, with the obvious exception of Iraq. For Ramazani, Iraq is like a cat caught in a corner, lashing out fiercely and perhaps irrationally against its Persian neighbor out of sheer desperation. This book will undoubtedly stir up controversy by challenging the main tenets on which U.S. foreign policy has been based in the Middle East over the last decade. The author argues against the widely accepted view that Iran has tried to export its revolution to other Persian Gulf states. He cites historical tensions between Shia and Sunni Moslem sects in Bahrain, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia, tensions that have already planted the seeds for domestic discontent. Thus Iranian aid to such movements is seen by Ramazani as a peripheral factor to their growth. The author also tries to exonerate the Islamic Republic of Iran from active complicity in regional terrorist acts, arguing that the republic's proterrorism rhetoric is a far cry from its actions. So far, Ramazani argues, most of the evidence implicating Iran in terrorist acts has been conjectural. Ramazani's ultimate objective is to debunk U.S. misconceptions about Iran's religious fanaticism; these misconceptons have served to block the United States' ability to understand Iran's actions and respond with sense and tact. However, Ramazani is not an apologist for the Iranian government. Though he is Iranian , he retains a degree of objectivity that allows for critical analysis of events both within and beyond his home country. The most valuable contribution of this scholarly work is the concluding set of recommendations directed at U.S. policymakers. Although the book was 230 SAIS REVIEW published before the recent Iranian arms scandal came to light, it stands to the author's credit that his final guidelines are still appropriate. He sees recent U.S. diplomatic errors as a product of American misunderstanding of Iran combined with a polarized geopolitical outlook. Iran and its neighbors do not fit into a "good guy-bad guy" scenario. Iran still remains a geopolitical prize, with the Persian Gulf to the south and the Soviet Union to the north. Thus, the United States cannot afford to generate further animosity with the Islamic state. According to Ramazani, it is in the U.S. interest to discard old misconceptions and adopt a new, more pragmatic approach to handling tensions in the gulf. Revolutionary Iran provides an informative analysis of the current scenario in the region as well as a set of sound suggestions for a new and long overdue approach. Foreign-policy makers and scholars alike would do well to read it. The Closest of Enemies. By Wayne S. Smith. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1987. 308 pp. $19.95/cloth. Reviewed by Angelo Capozzi, M.A. candidate, SAIS. In August of 1982 Wayne Smith resigned from his post as head of the United States Interests Section in Havana, Cuba. His action was in protest of the Reagan administration's foreign-policy initiatives in Cuba...