The CIA Insider's Guide to the Iran Crisis: From CIA Coup to the Brink of War

by John Kiriakou, Gareth Porter

Why are the United States and Iran always at odds?  How can two strong former allies become such mortal enemies? What does the future hold for US–Iran relations, and how will it affect the Middle East?

In The CIA Guide to Iran, former CIA Officer John C. Kiriakou explores one of the most intractable and difficult problems in American foreign policy. This book looks at the political and social history of Iran, its strategic importance to the Soviet Union and its economic and strategic importance to the US and the United Kingdom. It explains to the reader how external events, economic pressures, sanctions, religion, war, and American and British imperialism conspired to push a country with immeasurable natural wealth to bankruptcy. It then walks the reader through contemporary problems between Iran and the international community—and especially the United States—by examining the events leading up to myriad political, diplomatic, and military conflicts between them.

With additional information from Iran expert Gareth Porter, author of Manufactured The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare, The CIA Guide to Iran also includes robust appendices to help the reader understand American foreign and intelligence policy toward Iran, United Nations Security Council Resolutions, and the analysis of think tanks that focus on Iran. It also features extensive information on President Trump's foreign policy approach to Iran and the Middle East in general. 
 

Genres: Politics, Nonfiction, Middle East, History

146 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 4, 2020

About the author

John served in the Central Intelligence Agency first as an analyst, and later as a counterterrorism operations officer, from 1990-2004. He spent much of his career working on Iraq and the Persian Gulf. In 1997 he changed career tracks from analysis to operations and moved to Athens, Greece, where he worked against the notorious terrorist group “Revolutionary Organization 17 November.” He became chief of counterterrorist operations in Pakistan following the September 11 attacks, and his tour climaxed in the March 2002 capture of Abu Zubaydah, then believed to be al-Qa’ida’s third-ranking official.

John Kiriakou became an anti-torture whistleblower and activist when he told ABC News in December 2007 that the CIA was torturing prisoners, that that torture was official U.S. government policy, and that the policy was approved by the President.

John eventually was charged with three counts of espionage, one count of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act and one count of making a false statement as a result of the 2007 ABC News interview. Even though he had no criminal intent, and there was no harm to the national security, accepting the plea resulted in a sentence of 30 months in prison.

Reviews

[Randall Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

After the US/CIA removed the democratically elected leader of Iran Mosaddegh in 1953 and placed him under house arrest for the rest of his life, it installed the dictator Shah and his dreaded secret service SAVAK – both which ruled Iran until 1979. “The SAVAK earned a fearsome reputation for the use of torture and murder of dissidents. The CIA and Israel’s Mossad took care of the training and many SAVAK officers were sent to Israel for that purpose.” Note, that US media will never tell you about the US-approved crimes of the Shah or SAVAK. Dictators only get labeled bad if the US isn’t given a cut of their action; thus, Saudi Arabia’s dictatorship isn’t mentioned on TV. An Iranian populace primarily enflamed by the Shah’s inequality led Iran from secular/nationalism to an Islamic state: “by 1972, Iran had one of the most unequal systems of income distribution in the entire world.” The Shah did nothing to help the rural poor, or those who flocked to the cities from poverty, who were now living in shanty towns. The Iranian people were also enflamed that the US-supported Shah had taken $20 billion from the country. The US also outfitted the Shah’s Iran with more than $10 billion in military equipment, giving it the fifth largest army in the world.

Iran’s Shi’a clergy blamed the Shah’s failures on polytheism and turned the Iranian people against the hereditary monarchy. Adding fuel to the fire, in 1978, when there were 500,000 protesting against the Shah in Tehran, his forces responded, and 84 Iranian civilians were killed. Then that December two million Iranians called “for the return of Khomeini from exile and the establishment of an Islamic Republic.” Then in 1979 starts the 444-day Iran hostage crisis which was “celebrated” by “millions of Iranians” who well remembered “vividly how the CIA had destroyed the first truly independent Iranian government and put the Shah in power.” Carter appearing to grant the Shah asylum in the US then only intensified Iranian hostage crisis pride.

The US well knew that Iraqi forces were using US made chemical weapons against the Iranians in 1983 – the author says the “US was complicit”. A US military attaché said in an interview the US knew all about it. In Halabja, Iraqis killed 3,500 to 5,000 “virtually all civilians” with US supplied sarin gas. And 100,000 Iranians were “severely injured” from those attacks of which 55,000 still suffer agonizing after-effects. Imagine our press telling you any of this. Iran inherited a nuclear reactor (Bushehr) from the Shah’s regime. Iran hasn’t violated the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), but the author says the US has by denying Iran peaceful access to nuclear technology.

Americans were taught by media to hate Khomeini but we were not told how he actually banned producing both chemical and nuclear weapons because they said they were “illicit under Islam” a.k.a. haram [forbidden] – funny how they AREN’T illicit under Zionism. Fast forward to Khamenei in 2003 who also said nuclear weapons were “against our principles.” But Israel developing them in the 60’s was not against Zionist principles. The CIA got its hands on a very credible 2001 report that Iran had no intention of “weaponizing” uranium. Obama’s campaign platform was to negotiate with Iran, but that went down the toilet once he was elected and replaced negotiation with military threats and economic pressure. We are going to hurt you both physically and economically – think of us like the Mafia - but without their delightful accordion music. Hillary Clinton said she wanted the sanctions on Iran to be “tight and crippling” – like her persona in bed. “The first ever cyberattack resulting in damage to infrastructure in human history” was done by Obama who in 2009 who authorized a cyberattack on Iran’s enrichment facility at Natanz. [When they asked, “Can we go ahead with the illegal attack Sir?” I’ll bet he replied, “Yes, We Can” while standing in front of a placard that said, “HOPE”]

When Trump gets in office in 2017, Jared Kushner’s dad was already a friend and bankroller of Netanyahu, while Trump had been financed to the tune of $100 million by rabid Zionist Sheldon Adelson (another bankroller of Netanyahu). Christian Zionist Pompeo portrayed Iran as “fueling proxy wars across the Middle East” but said nothing about the US fueling proxy wars from Gaza to Ukraine. Apparently, Pompeo and Trump don’t want you to know about the long history of Israel threatening Iran which might lead it to logically want and develop some form of deterrence. “The Trump administration’s strategy also seeks to deprive Iran of the sovereign right of self-defense, which obviously includes the right to maintain the normal means of deterrence.” Giving up that right of deterrence didn’t historically turn out that well for Saddam Hussein (p.79), did it? The US Treasury went after Iran contracting its economy with sanctions creating “an acute shortage of drugs needed for life-saving treatments, especially chemotherapy for cancer patients.” The idea was (and still is) to turn the Iranian people en masse against their government – instead a 2019 survey showed 80% of Iranians (p.85) had a negative view of the US. An Inconvenient Truth. Trump withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) which made the world more unsafe.

Trump Speaks: Trump said Iran is “the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism”. And I thought (as Martin Luther King Jr said) that the US was the leading sponsor of terrorism. Just compare Iran’s tiny death toll since 1979 to that of the US yet Trump called Iran’s present regime “murderous” which is laughable. Trump added, “and we will not allow a regime that chants ‘Death to America’ to gain access to the ‘most deadly’ weapons on Earth.” [But giving our deadliest weapons to fund an active genocide - no problemo. Note that Trump has no problem calling Iran’s Islamic leadership a dictatorship but NEVER called Iran’s previous dictator Shah, as a dictator. Trump won’t tell you that the last time Iran actually had a leader who wasn’t a dictator and was loved by the people, the US/CIA removed him (1953) - so the US is partly to blame for today’s Iran.] Trump in 2017 called Iran’s present regime “a rogue regime” while Noam Chomsky for decades called the US “a rogue state.” Trump said of Iran “the regime’s two favorite chants are ‘Death to America’ and ‘Death to Israel’.” The amusing thing here is if Israel merely became a true democracy (equal rights for all Palestinians) it WOULD mean the death of Israel (as a Jewish supremacist state) w/o any actual death. And if the US was a true democracy (and not as Jimmy Carter said long ago an oligarchy), then no one in Iran would shout “Death to America” because they'd see us as isolationists too busy fixing our infrastructure and creating US high-speed rail to lust after ripping Iran a new one to screw with its ally China (Belt and Road Initiative) and China's immediate terminal threat to decades of US hegemony.

This was my 52nd and last Goodreads book essay to post for 2025 so until January all my 2026 reviews (starting next week) will just be posted on my Facebook page. This was a very good book I’m glad to have read. Kudos to the author. With Iran presently dominating the headlines, I wanted to move my knowledge of post-Shah Iran vs. the US from braindead to comatose.

[Ajla Dzajic · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a very informative read and very useful for understanding the circumstances that led to the current showdown between Iran and the US/Israel.
As I have little knowledge of Iran history previous to the WWII this was also very useful to understand the past ~150 years of the constant barrage and exploitation of Iran's people and its resources.

The authors beginn with a short introduction to Iran history, beginning with the events at the end of the nineteenth century, Russian invasion and seizure of the present-day Dagestan, Armenia, Georgia and Azerbaijan. Then we're introduced to the British establishment of the semi-colonial relationship with Iran (a colony in all but name), especially their exploitation of the corruption of the Qajar dynasty.

"In 1872, the Qajar ruler, Nasir al-Din Shah, gave Baron Julian de Reuter (the founder of Reuters News Agency) control over most of Iran's mines, all of its railway construction, its irrigation networks and other agricultural and industrial projects in Iran. And in 1890, a British military officer obtained monopoly control over all production, sale and export of Iran's tobacco crop.."
"British foreign minister Lord Curzon later referred to 'the most complete and extraordinary surrender of the entire industrial resources of a kingdom into foreign hands that has probably ever been dreamt of.' That sweeping description was clearly meant to include the concession that would come to define Iranian anti-imperialism in the twentieth century: the 60-year oil concession granted to a British citizen in 1901 covering the entire country except for the five northern-most provinces."

This of course does not sit well with Iranian people and the hostility towards the British is enormous.

"..in February 1921, Reza Khan, the commander of an Iranian Cossack garrison, seized control of Tehran in a British-supported military coup and created a military dictatorship. In 1925 Reza Khan declared himself Shah, or monarch, beginning the Pahlavi dynasty as Reza Shah."

"..in 1933 Reza Shah could not resist the power of the British-owned oil company when it demanded a major revision of the original 1901 concession, which it has systematically violated by failing to pay any royalties whatsoever for years on one pretext or another. The Iranian government was forced to sign a new agreement with the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, despite having identified 13 distinct ways that it was much less favorable than the original concession...the British obtained an extension of the concession for 32 more years until 1993.."

"During the World War II the allies feared that Reza Shah would be favorble to Germany and forced him into exile, whereupon his eldest son, Mohammed Reza Pahlavi, became the Shah of Iran at 21 years of age."

"In 1949 Muhammed Mosadegh (the first Iranian to earn a PhD from European university in 1913) co-founded the National Front of Iran, a political party dedicated to establishing democracy and ending foreign interference in Iranian politics, with nationalization of the British oil monopoly as the new party's explicit goal."

As a response to this the British government argued that the Iranians were incapable of managing the oil industry. To spread their message of the incapacity of Iranians to manage their own resources they naturally employed media, much like they do today.
"The British and Anglo-American media gave the public a cartoon portraying Mossadegh as childish, unstable, extremist and psychologically incapable of compromise."

The alliance of the British and the US lead to meeting of the senior US and British officials in April 1951 where both sides had been in full agreement that "effective power should be kept over this valuable asset", the asset being the Iranian oil.

So, in a coup staged by the CIA, Mossadegh was arrested, tried for treason, served five years in prison, then was put under house arrest until he died in 1956.

After the forceful demise of the budding democracy in Iran the stage is set for the Shah Muhammed Reza Pahlavi.

"In 1957, the regime (Shah's) set up SAVAK, the Persian acronym for the National Organization for Security and Intelligence, which became the first police state in Iranian history, in which only groups loyal to the Shah could operate freely and any political dissent was vigorously repressed (the repression is acceptable to the US and the British when done by the allies!) SAVAK had 3000 to 5000 official personnel, but tens of thousands of informers throughout the society. The SAVAK earned a fearsome reputation for the use of torture and murder of dissidents. The CIA and Israel's Mossad took care of the training, and many SAVAK officers were sent to Israel for that purpose.
The destruction by the Shah's regime of the secular nationalists (Mossadegh's party) and Marxist political forces cleared the way for the development of an Islamic movement in Iran. The effect was evident in the 1963, when demonstrations by Islamic followers of Ruhollah Khomeini against the Shah's regime occurred throughout Iran. The size of the protests – and the violent crackdown on them by government troops with live fire, killing an estimated 300 people – first established Khomeini's status as the leader of the movement against the Shah."

But shockingly (not) this violent crackdown on protesters did not bring the USS aircraft carrier in the Indian Ocean to "free the people of Iran" from the repressive Shah regime.

Having crushed the Islamic uprising, Shah launched the "White Revolution" - a campaign of Westernization and Idustrialization. It was so successful that "by 1972, Iran had one of the most unequal systems of income distribution in the entire world." Luckily it worked wonders for the Shah and his family because "at the end of Shah's reign the royal family's total worth was estimated at $20 billion."
Some of his efforts were more praiseworthy, like increasing the military budget and "making Iran dominant military power in the region, with its largest navy and air force and the fifth-largest army in the world." This came at a cost he could not afford though, the one he intended to finance by increasing the price of oil by 20–25% at the next OPEC meeting, the news that was met with great disapproval of the US president Gerald Ford.
That OPEC meeting was the end of the US reliance on Shah and Iran's oil (which Saudis knew how to take advantage of). The inflation and the unemployment created the space for Khomeini's return and the return of riots. On September 1978 500000 protesters gathered in Tehran, refused to disperse and subsequently 84 were killed by the indiscriminate fire of the commandos.
The US National security adviser at the time, Zbigniew Brzezinski, suggested that the administration should urge Shah to "send troops out and shoot down as many people as necessary and bring an end to the rebellion once and for all" - I wonder if they'd argue for the same procedure now in Tehran as well...
Shah refused to do so and after some more failed attempts to regain power and control in January 1979 he and his family left Iran for exile in Egypt.

The rest of the booklet revolves around the US relationship with the Islamic regime in Iran, the vilification and demonisation if it and the role that the Israeli lobby played in the official US policy towards Iran over the years and especially since the arrival of the neocons.

First the Regan administration's support for Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war is addressed.
"The most significant feature of that policy was that it flashed a green light for Saddam to carry out a chemical war against Iran that rivalled the infamous World War I chemical attacks and then provided international political-diplomatic cover for it."
"The US was complicit in the first use of deadly nerve gas in a war in human history, because Iraqi forces using the gas were heavily reliant on U.S. satellite imagery, maps, and other intelligence on Iranian troop movements, logistics facilities and Iranian air defenses, according to retired Air Force Col. Rick Francone, then the U.S. military attache in Baghdad. 'The Iraqis never told us that they intended to use nerve gas,' Francona acknowledged in a 2013 interview. 'They didn't have to. We already knew.' The Iraqi Anfal campaign in early 1988 included an attack on the Kurdish town of Halabja near the Iran-Iraq border with sarin gas, killing 3500 to 5000 – virtually all civilians.."

The visceral hatred of the consecutive U.S. administrations towards Iran and their allies in Lebanon is demonstrated in their support for the sectarian violence and terrorism of the Maronite Christian right-wing extremist Kateeb Party (also called the Phalange) and their leader Bashir Gemayel.
"But Gemayel had also become an asset of the Israelis, and ruthless Minister of Defense Ariel Sharon asked CIA Director Casey in early 1982 to provide $10 million to support a paramilitary operation by Gemayel's group that would obviously be coordinated with the Israelis. The Israelis were promising to make him President of Lebanon in return for his full cooperation .. Casey agreed to the Israeli plan."
"In august 1982, after the evacuation of the PLO troops from Beirut, and the Israeli takeover, Gemayel became president of Lebanon with U.S. and Israeli backing. In mid-September Gemayel was killed by massive bomb at his headquarters in Beirut. Two day later, the Israelis trucked Gemayel's killers to the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps in Beirut, where they massacred some 700 Palestinian civilians, including women and children – just as Sharon has planned from the beginning, telling U.S. envoy Philip Habib in August about the 'need to clean out' those camps."

After the collapse of the Soviet Union Pentagon strategists called for a more agressive U.S. political-military posture in the Middle East. Clinton administration's Middle East policy adviser, Martin Indyk, an Australian citizen and former communications adviser of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Shamir, developed a policy of harsh pressure on Iran, without any input from the State Department Middle East Bureau or the intelligence community.. "it was pretty much accepted in Washington that the new policy had originated in Israel.."

The attack on Iran continues with George W. Bush administration's policymakers who "believed the United States should use its newly-won global and regional power to eliminate regimes that refused to cooperate with the new U.S.-Israeli dominated regional order...the list of states to be taken down under the strategy included Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Sudan and Somalia."

Further we learn about the questionable intelligence received from the Mujahedin-E Khalq (MEK), the Iranian terrorist organisation, the so-called "laptop documents" that supposedly "prove" the existence of the Iran nuclear program. "The MEK were well known to have worked for Israel's Mossad intelligence agency by making public information about the Iranian nuclear program that Mossad did not want attributed to itself."

Next we learn about the Obama administration's continuation of the "Maximum Pressure" policy towards Iran and the events that led to the JCPOA - The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action agreement that reflected "the Obama administration's successful use of coercive diplomacy in getting international support for sanctions against Iran's banking and oil sectors."
But even this was not a harsh enough punishment of Iran for the neocons and the U.S. partners in crime in the Middle East.
"..the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was determined to derail the agreement, and it had the overweening political power over the U.S. Congress in regard to Iran to do just that. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the main Israeli lobby in Washington, had given top priority for years in its Congressional work to preventing any agreement with Iran, and it was able to mobilize majorities in both houses of Congress for the demand that Congress be able to accept or reject the agreement. Meanwhile, the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a pro-Israel think-tank focused primarily on influencing U.S. policy toward Iran, was leading the propaganda assault on the agreement. The rejection of the JCPOA in the House of Representatives on September 11, 2015 by a vote of 269 to 162 showed dramatically how completely U.S policy was subject to a special interest group that disposed the money and organization necessary to line up Congress behind its position."

Finally, we come to the Trump's first administration and their effort to go beyond any of their predecessors in demonizing Iran.
"Donald Trump's entry into the Oval Office in 2017, combined with Israeli and pro-Israeli americans' influence on Trump's policy, led to the adoption of the most aggressive U.S. government posture toward Iran in the entire history of the conflict. Trump's policy was inevitably shaped by his personal and financial ties with extremist pro-Israel figures. Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner's father was a longtime supporter and personal friend of Netanyahu's as well as an ardent supporter of Israeli settlements on the occpied West Bank. But even more important, the biggest single contribution to his campaign – $100 million – had come from Sheldon Adelson, the extremist Zionist opponent of the deal who held dual U.S. and Israeli citizenship and has also bankrolled Netanyahu#s past presidential campaigns as well."
"On May 8, 2018, Trump announced that he was withdrawing the United States from the JCPOA...Behind that decision was a seismic shift in the Trump administration's national security team engineered by pro-Israel lobbyists in Washington to get the personnel they wanted to ensure a U.S. policy of confrontation with Iran."
Two key men in Trump's virulent attack on Iran were Mike Pompeo and John Bolton.
Pompeo "..had recognized by 2016 that the combination of financial backing by Zionist billionaires like Adelson and tens of millions of Christian Zionist voters in the United States were his ticket to power. He then seized on the Iran nuclear deal as the issue that would propel his political career, aligning himself initially with Sen. Marc Rubio (wink wink).."
"Pompeo even brazenly warned the Iranian people that they would have to either take matters into their own hands to get the government that would give in to U.S. demands or suffer the consequences of punitive U.S. sanctions." – So much for the great love for the Iranian people so often professed by the likes of Pompeo and Bolton. Btw, how was it called again when "the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims" is used?

The rest of the story is relatively well known and goes into the details of the coordinated U.S.- Israel attack on the Iran's deterrence forces, also called "terrorists" by the US/European/Israeli media, the role played by the U.S. and its allies in Syria, Iraq and Yemen war and the barrage of propaganda to justify the constant Israeli escalations into the neighbouring countries.

Overall, this was a good introduction to the topic and a motivation to learn more about the conflict between Iran and U.S./Israel.

[Nigel Pinkus · Rating 5 out of 5]

This might be a small book in stature, but huge, absolutely huge in insight. It includes: a brief history of US meddling in the Middle East. It discusses propaganda ~ American style, how to make a country seem more menacing than it really is; present false narratives, demonize a country and argued that sanctions imposed upon a country don't actually work. It should be mentioned, Mr. John Kiriakou blew the whistle on the CIA’s torture program, telling the ABC News that the CIA tortured prisoners and that torture was official government policy. Suffice to say, he spent time in prison for it.

This person read with real interest and then Chapter Five, "Pushing for War", sent this reader into free-fall. Kiriakou and Porter gave a blow by blow description of US foreign policy implementation for Syria, Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas in Gaza. The authors went to great length to describe what Bolton, in particular, was trying to do. He was trying to goad the then US President, Trump, into an all out war with Iran. In a matter of six weeks leading up to September 9, John Bolton had created a phony Iranian threat (not believed by the President). He then, tried to generate an extra 10,000 troops into the Middle East. (Not considered by the President). Then, he urged an attack in retaliation to a US drone that was shot down. If that wasn't enough, Trump and Bolton clashed over softening sanctions on Iran. By September 9th, Trump had had enough of Bolton and sacked him announcing it on Twitter the next day.

This novella, had a staggering 229 footnotes and appendices complete with redacted documents and statements about Trump, Mike Pompeo and John Bolton to support all his assertions. America has pushed the images of 'Democracy' and 'Freedom' which really represent military occupation and regime change. It is clearly the US wants to dominate and control the world. They don't care about 'Democracy' or 'Freedom' in the slightest, they just want to plunder the resources out of each country and, of course, any oil that may be in the ground. The US, then leaves a puppet government for them to use for their own purposes in the future.

Lastly, it should be mentioned that the US aims to throw their militant extremists back into Syria (remember the supposed 'moderate rebels'), Iraq and Iran in the near future. Heaven help us all.

Some further reading with the US at the forefront of foreign policy ~
AFGHANISTAN:
1. Chapter 5,'Liberating Afghanistan'. From, “Freedom Next Time”, John Pilger. 2007.
2. “No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban and the War through Afghan Eyes”, Anand Gopal. 2015.
3. “The Hooligans of Kandahar: Not All War Stories are Heroic”, Joseph Kassabian. 2017. pages 258.
4. “The Afghan Solution”, Lucy Morgan Edwards. (US and Afghanistan).

IRAQ:
1. “We Meant Well: How I helped lose the the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi people”. Peter Van Buren. 2001. 275 pages. (Iraq).
2. “Tell Me No Lies”, John Pilger. 2011. 677 pages. Particularly, ‘Complicity in a Million Deaths', Mark Curtis. 'Reporting the Truth about Iraq': Articles by Felicity Arbuthnot, Joy Gordon, Richard Norton-Taylor, Jo Wilding, Edward W. Said and Robert Fisk. et. al. (Iraq).
3. “Tell Me Lies”, Propaganda and media distortion in the Attack on Iraq. (2004). Edited by D Miller.
4. “The Unraveling: High Hopes and Missed Opportunities in Iraq”, Emma Sky, 2016. (Iraq).

The MIDDLE EAST & the USA:
1. “The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East”, Robert Fisk. 2005. 1105 pages.
2. “Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington sold our Soul for Saudi Crude”, Robert Baer.
3. “See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism”, Robert Baer.
4. “Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and bin Laden, from the Soviet Invasion to September 11”, Steve Coll. 2001. (USA & Pakistan).
5. “The Looming Tower”, Lawerence Wright. (The USA & The Middle East).
6. “Dirty Wars, The World is a Battlefield”, Jeremy Scahill. 2013. (the USA and the Middle East).
7. “Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army”, Jeremy Scahill. 2007.
8. "Syria's Silenced Voices", by Patrik Paulov. May 10th, 2021. (Syria).
9. “Countering War Propaganda: of the Dirty War on Syria”, Tim Anderson. 2017. (Syria).
10. “Prophets of War: Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex”,William D Hartung. 2010. (The US).
11. “Spoils of War: The Human Cost of America’s Arms Trade”, John Tirman. 1997. (Turkey, ‘Kurdistan’ & the US).

[Philip Lavery · Rating 5 out of 5]

The authors give a great overview of the US Iran crisis in under 150 pages!

[Nigel Pinkus · Rating 5 out of 5]

This might be a small book in stature, but huge, absolutely huge in insight. It includes: a brief history of US meddling in the Middle East. It discusses propaganda American style, how to make a country seem more menacing than it really is; present false narratives, demonize a country and argues that sanctions imposed upon a country don't actually work. It should be mentioned, Mr. John Kiriakou blew the whistle on the CIA’s torture program, telling the ABC News that the CIA tortured prisoners and that torture was official government policy and he spent time in prison for it.

But it was Chapter Five, "Pushing for War", that sent this reader into free-fall. Kiriakou and Porter gave a blow by blow description of US foreign policy implementation for Syria, Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas in Gaza. The authors went to length to describe what Bolton, in particular, was trying to goad the then US President, Trump, into an all out war with Iran. In a matter of six weeks leading up to September, for example, Bolton had created a phony Iranian threat (not believed by the President). He then, tried to generate an extra 10,000 troops into the Middle East. (Not even considered by Trump). Then, he urged an attack in retaliation to a US drone that was shot down. If that wasn't enough, Trump and Bolton clashed over softening sanctions on Iran. By September 9th, Trump had had enough of Bolton and sacked him announcing it on Twitter the next day.

This novella, had a staggering 229 footnotes and an appendices complete with redacted documents and statements about Trump, Mike Pompeo and John Bolton all to support his assertions. America has pushed the images of 'Democracy' and 'Freedom' which really represent military occupation and regime change. It is clearly the US wants to dominate and control the world. They don't care about 'Democracy' or 'Freedom', they just want to take the riches and resources out of the country and, of course, any oil that might be there and leave a puppet government for the US government to use for their own purposes.

Lastly, it should be mentioned that the US aims to throw their militant extremists (remember the so called 'moderate rebels) back into Syria, Iraq and Iran in the near future. Heaven help all us.

[Geheimer Leser · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like books that offer insight into otherwise secret information and I do believe that the author is a patriot. But, because there's bad blood between him and the agency, which led to his imprisonment, I feel like he's not objective anymore. If you rely solely on this book, you might actually believe that Iran is a force for good in the world stage which clearly isn't.

[JD · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very insightful and interesting.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gave me an idea on the USA's views about Iran.