'The Last Shah' Review: A Purely Domestic Conspiracy

S E E D E D   C O N T E N T

Weaving conspiracy theories is a kind of art form in parts of the Middle East, and the Iranians are the undisputed masters. So pervasive is conspiracy theorizing in Iran that the "Encyclopaedia Iranica," a scholarly guide to the country's history and culture, contains a long and learned article documenting the many influential writers who attribute "the course of Persian history and politics to the machinations of hostile foreign powers and secret organizations."

In their own style, Western writers, too, display a pronounced tendency to depict foreign decision-making as the main driver of modern Iran's political history. Thus the Eurocentrism of Westerners and the conspiracy theorizing of Iranians work in parallel to produce histories that relegate Iranian leaders to bit parts in their own national drama.

Remedying this deficiency is the unstated but clear goal of Ray Takeyh, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a leading American analyst of contemporary Iran. His fifth book, "The Last Shah: America, Iran, and the Fall of the Pahlavi Dynasty," offers an original interpretation that puts Iranian actors where they belong: at center stage. Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi is the main character, but Mr. Takeyh's analysis rests on his portrayal of the traditional Iranian aristocracy—"the landlords, merchants, urban notables, and clerics" who helped the shah come to power in 1941 but whom he destroyed in the 1960s.

The shah regarded the traditional elite as an anachronistic impediment to modern government. To be sure, the aristocrats were fractious, scheming and zealously protective of their privileges, but along with their self-interest came a measure of social responsibility. In Mr. Takeyh's view, their wealth was "tied to the land," so they "could sense the peasants' and laborers' grievances and often responded to their distress." They were the sinew connecting the big cities to the countryside.

And they were patriots. They deserve credit, Mr. Takeyh argues, for achievements routinely ascribed to foreigners—such as convincing Joseph Stalin to honor his wartime pledges to withdraw from the Iranian province of Azerbaijan, the arena of the first major standoff between the West and Moscow in the Cold War. Historians frequently cite President Truman's get-tough policy as the cause of Stalin's retreat, but Mr. Takeyh gives equal attention to the deft diplomacy of Iran's prime minister, Ahmad Qavam. A talented aristocrat, Qavam persuaded Stalin that Soviet interests would best be achieved by supporting Iranian independence.

But the highlight of Mr. Takeyh's book is its reinterpretation of the coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq in 1953, the most controversial event in the history of U.S.-Iranian relations. No one has shaped the understanding of the coup more than Kermit Roosevelt, the grandson of President Theodore Roosevelt and the CIA's man in Tehran in 1953. A talented self-promoter, Roosevelt cast himself in his memoir as the primary architect of the coup, a claim that Mr. Takeyh disparages. The coup, he writes, "was more an Iranian plot than an American one."

In fact, it was two separate plots—only the first of which was American. It was also, Mr. Takeyh observes, "the worst kept secret in Tehran." When the shah followed Roosevelt's script and dispatched Colonel Nematollah Nasiri, the commander of the Imperial Guards, to remove Mossadeq from power, the wily prime minister was lying in wait. He had Nasiri arrested. Despite having the constitutional authority to dismiss the prime minister, the shah fled the country in fear of his life, taking refuge in Italy. The CIA's coup was a flop.

But the shah's departure generated a popular backlash, with crowds pouring into the streets in spontaneous opposition to Mossadeq. The traditional elite, for their part, was as eager as the protesters to bring the shah back home. Mossadeq, in the eyes of the elite, was a dangerous demagogue, an aspiring dictator and an enemy of the monarchy.

The way was now clear for the architect of the second plot, Gen. Fazlollah Zahedi, to lead a broad coalition of traditional leaders against the prime minister. The second coup, Mr. Takeyh persuasively argues, "featured too many actors, too much improvisation, and too many unpredictable variables" to have been the product of one man's brain, let alone that of a foreigner like Roosevelt, who didn't speak the language and wasn't familiar with Iran. Zahedi and his cohort were "nationalists trying to save their country and preserve its institutions," Mr. Takeyh says. They would have toppled the prime minister "even if Kermit Roosevelt had never set foot in Iran."

This wasn't the first time that the traditional political elite had saved the monarchy. During World War II, Russia and Britain divided Iran into spheres of influence, exiled Reza Shah, who had aligned with Nazi Germany, and installed his son, the crown prince, on the throne. The British entertained thoughts of ending the dynasty altogether, but Prime Minister Mohammad Ali Foroughi, an old-school aristocrat, dissuaded them. Even so, the shah didn't conclude from this experience that aristocrats like Foroughi were protectors of the monarchy. He saw them instead as potential kingmakers, dangerous rivals capable of colluding with foreigners to end his rule.

During the 1960s, the shah carried out a series of reforms designed to neuter the elite, vastly expanding the police power of the state while undermining the economic base of the aristocrats. He surrounded himself with technocrats—yes-men who owed their position solely to him, feared giving advice he didn't want to hear, and had no political skills.

The shah was a tragic figure of Shakespearean proportions. He inherited his father's autocratic instincts but none of his ruthlessness. The success of his monarchy required him to share power and responsibility with the traditional leadership class, but he was unequal to the task. "The contradiction that eventually destroyed his rule," Mr. Takeyh concludes, "was that he had a taste for absolutism without the character to sustain it."

No conspiracy of foreign powers was required to topple him. When a bloodthirsty and cunning foe eventually emerged—Ayatollah Khomeini—the shah had neither the stomach for the fight nor the allies to help him wage it.

—Mr. Doran is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and the author of "Ike's Gamble: America's Rise to Dominance in the Middle East."