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Iran And The United States: A Cold War Case Study

Richard W. Cottam
Reviewed by By John C. Campbell
Winter 1988/89
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Richard W. Cottam
University of Pittsburgh Press
1988
298 pp.
$29.95

A severe critique of U.S. policy toward Iran since World War II, somewhat similar to that of James Bill (whose The Eagle and the Lion was noted in Foreign Affairs, Summer 1988). Cottam, an authority on Iranian nationalism, points out again and again how American diplomats and political leaders, mesmerized by the cold war with the Russians, ignored or misinterpreted both reality and the Iranian view of reality. Much in the record of U.S.-Iranian relations is controversial, as are some of Cottam's arguments, but his book shows a deep understanding of Iranian history and politics.

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