Middle East
An excellent way to take the measure of revolutionary Iran today is to read this up-to-date, well-researched, and perceptive history of its foreign policy since 1979.
The book offers a critique of U.S. policy and a concluding chapter suggests moderate and manageable policies the United States should enact to transcend its "Islam anxiety."
Three "myths" and a tripartite approach to transcending them frame this book. The "core mythology" is that all Middle Eastern issues are linked to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The second myth concerns "larger themes of engagement versus nonengagement and regime change versus the change of regime behavior." And the third myth relates to the question of democracy promotion.
Woven into this gem of leave-no-stone-unturned reporting is an account of the Israeli policies of harsh reprisals and targeted assassinations; the poor performance of the Palestine Liberation Organization; the United States' on-again, off-again efforts to bring about an Israeli-Palestinian peace; and the Jordanian government's complex relations with Hamas, other Palestinian groups, Israel, and the United States.
In what amounts to a personal bildungsroman, MacFarquhar traces his encounters with the Arab world from Morocco to the Persian Gulf.
