The Twilight War

April 16, 2012
In this well-researched book, historian and former marine Crist makes the case that the United States is already enmeshed in a hidden war with Iran that has raged unacknowledged for decades. This shadow war is characterized by espionage, assassination plots, and frequent eruptions of open hostilities, and exacerbated by egregious missteps and blunders by both sides. (Crist loses no time in labeling the American invasion of Iraq, for instance, as one of the “worst planned campaigns ever executed by the U.S. military.”) Enriched by hundreds of interviews with key players as well as the author’s own experiences in the Persian Gulf, this is a comprehensive and readable account of American-Iranian hostilities since the 1979 revolution. Crist reveals many previously unreported details of recent maneuverings, such as the provenance of the Stuxnet virus and the backstory of the bizarre case of Shahram Amiri (the nuclear scientist who defected to the U.S. and then posted videos on YouTube claiming that he was being held captive by the CIA), but the broad outlines of the narrative are not nearly as “secret” as the subtitle implies. If there is a moral to this story, it may be that despite the furious machinations of the world’s intelligence agencies, critical change points more often than not hinge on blind luck and happenstance. Agent: The Wiley Agency.

Starred review from July 1, 2012
An encyclopedic account of the ongoing military and diplomatic conflict between the United States and Iran. Since the fall of the shah in 1979, Iran and the United States have been thorns in each other's sides. Iran seeks recognition as a regional power and as a champion of Shia Muslims throughout the Middle East, but its policy toward America has often been driven by a "paranoia that the real goal behind U.S. actions was the overthrow of the Islamic Republic." America, for its part, has consistently "helped perpetuate the animosity [by displaying] a callous disregard for Iranian grievances and security concerns." The result has been an ongoing "shadow war" in which each side has inflicted grievous casualties on the other without quite falling into open belligerence, while missing numerous opportunities for rapprochement. In a monumental debut, senior government historian Crist presents a comprehensive narrative of this conflict from the ascendancy of the Ayatollah Khomeini to the present day. Drawing on extensive access to American government leaders and documents, Crist surveys his topic in thorough, if sometimes ponderous, detail, including coverage of the bombing of the Marine base in Beirut, the Iran/Iraq war, the arms-for-hostages scandal, the naval battles of the "tanker wars," Iran's involvement in post-Hussein Iraq and its present pursuit of nuclear ambitions. Completely in command of the competing interests and personalities at the highest levels of American policymaking, Crist has an equally impressive grasp of the ebb and flow of diverse viewpoints in Iranian religious, political and military councils. The battle scenes are edge-of-the-seat gripping, and the author is keenly insightful on the Byzantine diplomatic maneuvers, by turns farcical and dismaying, and the motivations of the politicians, clerics, Cold Warriors and con artists who have stoked the ongoing tensions between the two nations in spite of important common interests. Some casual readers may be turned off by the page count, but this is likely to be the authoritative history of the origins and progress of the Iranian policy morass for years to come.

COPYRIGHT(2012) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

February 1, 2012

CIA spies square off against their counterparts in Iran, Iranian speedboats attack Western oil tankers, and Iran counters the American invasion of Iraq by sending in soldiers disguised as tourists, reporters, and aid workers. Iran and the United States have engaged in an unacknowledged almost-war for three decades, argues Crist, who as senior historian for the federal government has access to the people and the papers that can give him the data to make his case. Important.

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.