The Twilight War: By David Crist

The image of twilight elicits a bright day shrinking slowly into night.  As we see from Mossadeq to the hostages and from Iran-Contra to recent cyberattacks, the relationship between Iran and the United States was born at night and has struggled through the dark ever since.  Upon reading David Crist’s 572 page history that documents the three-decade long non-relationship, can anyone describe our policies as anything but a needless and enduring failure?  Crist, a historian for the federal government and advisor on Middle East issues, has produced The Twilight War:  The Secret History of America’s Thirty-Year Conflict With Iran, a clear arc from tragedy to farce in this very special relationship.   

Crist begins in the collapsing scenery of Shah Pahlavi’s detested reign and ends with Obama’s success in leading an international coalition towards comprehensive sanctions on a thirty-three year old “Islamic Republic.”  His narrative is not just stuffed with excellent anecdotes about covert activities (did you know that during the Cold War U.S. war planners hid caches of weapons and explosives in Eastern Europe?) it exposes the inner workings of bad and worse policymaking.  

There are also some delicious cameos:  The US hawking F-16’s to Sheik Hamad bin isa Al-Khalifa (the future king of Bahrain) as a bulwark against Iran.  The cat-clever Kuwaiti emirs who manipulated both the Soviets and the U.S.  And Moammar Gadaffi, insane as ever, sinking sixteen ships in the 1980s by inexplicably mining the Red Sea.

And the details about our own leadership are provocative as well.  If William Hartung’s excellent Prophets of War showed Reagan napping as defense contractors feasted on the Treasury, Crist’s portrait is of a dithering mooncalf.  Upon defeating Carter, Reagan refused to meet with the Joint Chiefs (a cheap snub) and began pushing the CIA to supply resources to Iraq, Iran’s longtime foe.  Crist cites the smug “realist” Richard Armitage saying, ““Neither side [of the Iran-Iraq War] was a good guy.  It’s a pity the war could not have lasted forever.”  With the help of U.S. and many members of NATO, the gunrunners earned their cash, and the protracted conflict ended with a whimper after eight years with nearly a million dead.   

During the war, when the Iranian ally Hezbollah kidnapped seven hostages, Reagan decided that he could do business with Iran.  After all, he had written letters citing America and Iran’s mutual religiosity as a reason to ally against the Soviets. (Of course, this was right before his administration supplied fabricated Soviet invasion plans.) 

But before Reagan's notorious, unconstitutional arms-for-hostages scheme supplied guns to the mullahs and offered American society the lachrymose speeches of Oliver North, Defense Secretary Weinberger supplied the President an admonition:  “This will undermine…our entire effort to contain Iran.  We will lose all credibility with our allies.  There are legal problems here, Mr. President, in addition to the policy problems.  It violates the Arms Export Control Act, even if done through the Israelis.  It violates our arms embargo against Iran.  It is illegal.” 

Reagan responded to Weinberger and other critics, “Well, the American people will never forgive me if big, strong President Reagan passed up a chance to free the hostages over this legal question.”  

Then on Nov. 13 he lied to the public about the deal and his sordid role in the deal.  As the great Alexander Cockburn once wrote of Reagan, “Truth…was what he happened to be saying at the time.”  Crist is less certain.  “Whether the president deliberately lied or was merely self-delusional remains debatable,” he writes, “but the United States had not only negotiated with a declared terrorist regime, but sold senior officers of the military arm of the Islamic Revolution—the Revolutionary Guard—planeloads of advanced weapons that could easily be used for offensive action.  They had even provided [the Iranians] a tour of the White House.”    

   The last minute pardons by Bush 41 nixed the multiple indictments that would have exposed the shameful and illegal behavior of those sheltered by the interstices of the national security state. Ironically, Khomeini would later turn U.S. weapons on the superpower in minor clashes that Crist describes with pointillistic detail.    

It is the contradictions of our position with Iran that are the most vexing about The Twilight War.  It seems that whenever U.S. policymakers were serious about a rapprochement—the mullahs would shout vitriol that Americans pols would take too seriously.  (And vice versa).  “The U.S. saw threats everywhere,” Crist writes.  And the conservatives in Iran’s leadership were even worse.  Iran would offer a “Roadmap” in 2003 that would address every issue of contention between Iran and the US—agreeing to full transparency in its nuclear program and agreed to halt its support for Hamas and take actions that would lead to a demilitarization of Hezbollah. 

What did the Iranians want?  A stop to “regime change” policies, turn over MEK members, and to recognize Iran’s “legitimate security interest in the region.”  They also wanted a statement that withdrew Iran from the ‘axis of evil’.  Kharrazi, Iran’s ambassador to France said in a statement:  “We are ready to normalize relations.”  But all this went nowhere and was undermined by narrow ideology, bogus preconceptions, lack of imagination, and bureaucratic suspicion. 

Oh, and terrible American leadership. 

            George H.W. Bush, for instance, communicated to the Iranians that “goodwill leads to goodwill.”  But as was his custom, Bush lied and reversed himself for political expediency.  The corrupt but pliable President Rafsanjani was abandoned and the toughs in Tehran—the Revolutionary Guard, the supreme leader, the Guardian council, and the parliament-- denounced moderation with Americans.  If Reagan set back the relationship through contradictions and dithering, Bush worsened it through cynicism and hubris.  Then, unbelievably, hoping for a deal with newly elected Bill Clinton, Rafsanjani awarded a $1 billion contract to Conoco to develop an underwater oil field.  Contract on America Republicans (along with the craven Clinton) killed the deal because they wanted to rub elbows with Israel! As you may remember, Clinton’s eight years were a nullity—save scandal and the Democrats deepening support for corporations—his attempts at a legacy through talks with Iran went the way of Hillarycare. 

                  But it was “The Decider” and his crew of fools, rowing up the Euphrates without a map, who went out of their way to worsen relations with the Iranians.  In Decision Points, he admits to leaving the Iranian issue “unresolved.”  (Though, what resolution he ever sought escapes me.)  In 2000, Bush was no internationalist.  In that campaign, he showed little interest in Iran or Iraq; isolation and “realism” was his nostrum.  After the attacks, Bush snubbed the moderate President Khatami, a reformer who was attempting to modernize a regressing country.  Khatami had hoped to light a candle to pay his respect to the victims of the Sunni attack and was refused because Iran, Iraq, and Syria were seen by administration hawks as equivalent evils in the “war on terror.”

Crist rightly declares this as a lost opportunity for an alliance; by using the “natural divisions” within the region, better policy could have been crafted for the U.S. and the peoples of the Middle East.  (As Bush will undoubtedly claim credit for emerging economic growth in Iraq, this failure is notable.)  Instead, as Rumsfeld once famously noted in his famous “snowflake” memos, all was swept up “things related and not.”  Iran was denounced as totalitarian—though Washington’s own allies were no angels.  The opportunity of exploiting the narcissism of small differences dissolved.  The administration refused any consideration of Iran in a postwar role—despite the obvious Shia majority within Iraq.  And by 2006 over 140 soldiers were killed by Shia militias.  How much of this could have been prevented with foresight from Bush’s “Vulcans” and the most basic of diplomatic communication?  Iran had cooperated during the Gulf War—even helping evacuate hostages from annexed Kuwait.  Why was it so unthinkable now considering the overtures by Khatami and his own domestic reforms?   

                  By the time Obama reached the White House and offered to talk without precondition to Iran’s leaders, it seemed too late.  Years of suspicion and mutual distrust (as well as the brutal and erratic behavior of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad) jammed negotiations.  The reckless behavior by the Basiji in 2009’s stolen election pushed the pro-American youth underground and discredited Iran’s leadership more than anytime since Khomeini needlessly prolonged the conflict with Iraq. 

Recently, Obama successfully cut off Iran and the two countries now wander towards possibilities:  Nuclear conflict, an Israeli strike during a post-election interregnum, or an underground earthquake that could devastate hidden nuclear material.  (These are some of the more lurid ones.)  But a protracted stalemate seems unlikely.  The strength of The Twilight War is Crist’s ability to illuminate the shadowy history; it illustrates the repeated incompetence of officials whose decisions have led us into the uncharted dark.