Synopses & Reviews
Understanding the troubled history of U.S.-Iran relations without examining its roots is impossible. The Islamic regime has partially defined itself by its anti-Americanism, making it an integral element of its historical provenance. As propaganda, anti-Americanism has been key to the regime’s attempts to establish itself as the leader of the insurgent Islamic faith. The regime cannot forgo its banner of anti-Americanism or see itself as anything but in a stage of constant siege in a battle against Satanically powerful foes. The founder of the Iranian regime, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, used the Qoranic moniker of the Great Satan to refer to America—as much a show of intimidated awe as of embittered animosity at what he imagined as America’s mythic omnipotence. In The Myth of the Great Satan, Iran expert Abbas Milani offers a critical review of the history of America’s relations with Iran and shows how little of the two countries’ long and complicated relationship is reflected in the axioms of the “Great Satan” myth.
Milani looks at U.S.-Iranian relations beginning in the early twentieth century, moving to the revolution of 1979 and onto the Iranian election of June 2009. Detailing the events surrounding that election, he explains why Iran is currently in a state of “political purgatory.” The regime’s continued confrontation with the United States; the accumulating economic woes brought about by its incompetence, corruption, and mismanagement; and the falling price of oil, compounded by the increasingly sharp bite of UN sanctions, have brought about desperate times. And despite the ruling regime’s rabid anti-Americanism, all available evidence demonstrates that Iran is the only Muslim country in which the people are favorably disposed toward the United States. The regime’s leaders and their allies have tried to use every tool of despotism at their disposal, but none have yet worked. Democracy is the inexorable future of Iran. But, as the author explains, meaningful and equitable relations can begin only after the two nations have arrived at a common, critical, and accurate reading of the past.
Synopsis
This critical review of the history of America's relations with Iran shows how little of the two countries' long and complicated relationship is reflected in the foundational axioms of the "Great Satan" myth. The author explains why meaningful and equitable relations can begin only after the two nations have arrived at a common, critical, and accurate reading of the past.
Synopsis
The founder of the Iranian regime, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, used the Qoranic moniker of the Great Satan to refer to America—as much a show of intimidated awe as of embittered animosity at what he imagined was America’s mythic omnipotence. In The Myth of the Great Satan, Iran expert Abbas Milani offers a critical review of the history of America’s relations with Iran and shows how little of the two countries’ long and complicated relationship is reflected in the foundational axioms of the “Great Satan” myth.
Milani shows how, like all enduring myths, this one has some tangible roots in reality but that they have been used by the regime today, and by the Soviets before it, to obfuscate other elements and construct the myth. He then explains why meaningful and equitable relations can begin only after the two nations have arrived at a common, critical, and accurate reading of the past.
Synopsis
This critical review of the history of America’s relations with Iran debunks the myth of the United States as the “Great Satan” as a necessary first step in establishing a new relationship between the two nations.
Synopsis
The clerical regime in Iran has always partially defined itself in terms of its opposition to the United States. The founder of the regime, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, first used the Qoranic moniker of the Great Satan to refer to America. Today, not only the regime but its invariably self-serving narrative of U.S.-Iranian relations is facing challenges more serious than any in the past. In The Myth of the Great Satan, Iran expert Abbas Milani examines the history of America’s relations with Iran and debunks the myth of the United States as the “Great Satan” as a necessary first step in establishing a new relationship between the two nations.
Milani shows how, like all enduring myths, this one has some tangible roots in reality but that they have been used by the regime today, and by the Soviets before it, to obfuscate other elements and construct the myth. By revealing this history the lies and the myth can be exposed. By debunking the myth and establishing the realities of the complicated history of the two countries’ entanglement, the author says, we can hope to establish normal relations between these two longtime adversaries.
Abbas Milani is a research fellow and codirector of the Iran Democracy Project at the Hoover Institution and the Hamid and Christina Moghadam Director of Iranian Studies at Stanford University. He has published more than twenty books, the most recent is Eminent Persians: The Men and Women Who Made Modern Iran, 1941-1979 (2008).
About the Author
Abbas Milani was born in Iran and educated in the United
States. He taught at Tehran University’s Faculty of Law and
Political Science until 1986. For many years he was the chair
of the Department of History and Political Science at Notre
Dame De Namur University. Since 2002 he has been at Stanford
University, where he co-directs the Iran Democracy Project
at the Hoover Institution; since 2005 he has been the
Hamid and Christina Moghadam Director of Iranian Studies
at Stanford. He has published more than twenty books, numerous
articles, and monographs in both Persian and English.
His memoir, Tales of Two Cities: A Persian Memoir (Mage
Publisher) was a San Francisco Chronicle best seller; his translation
of his own Persian Sphinx: Amir Abbas Hoveyda and the
Riddle of the Iranian Revolution went through more than
twenty printings before being banned by the Iranian regime
in February 2010. His Eminent Persians: The Men and Women
Who Made Modern Iran, 1941–1979 (Syracuse University
Press, 2009) offers biographical sketches of 150 of modern
Iran’s most influential artists, politicians, and entrepreneurs.
His work has been translated into many languages. His Peacock
Prince, a Political Life of the Shah will soon be published
by Palgrave Press.
Table of Contents
Contents
Foreword by Fouad Ajami
1. The Iranian Purgatory:
The Many Paradoxes of U.S. Relations with Iran
2. The Myth of the Great Satan
3. Purposes Mistook:
America and the Islamist Revolution
4. Flirting with Disaster:
The United States, Iran, and the “Eastern Look”
Epilogue
Notes
About the Author
About the Hoover Institution’s Herbert and Jane Dwight Working Group on Islamism and the International Order
Index