Book Review: Middle East: The Foreign Policy of Iran
| Published date | 01 June 1967 |
| Date | 01 June 1967 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/002070206702200242 |
| Subject Matter | Book Review |
BOOK
REVIEWS
351
Middle
East
THE
FOREIGN
POLICY
OF
IRAN.
A
Developing
Nation
in
World Affairs,
1500-1941.
By
Rouhollah
K.
Ramazani.
1966.
(Charlottesville:
Uni-
versity
Press
of
Virginia.
xviii,
330pp.
$7.50)
The
title
of
this
book is
a
misnomer.
The
first
three
centuries
under
consideration,
from
1500-1801,
are
disposed
of
in
twenty
pages,
and
Chapter
I cannot
be
considered
anything
more
than
an
historical
intro-
duction.
Almost
half
the
book
(pp.
171-300)
is
devoted
to
the
reign
of
Riza
Shah
(1925-1941).
As
a
study
of
the foreign
policy
in
Iran
in
the
19th
and
20th
centuries,
however,
this
book
has very
great
merit.
It
is
solidly based
on
both
the
Persian
and
the
Western
sources,
and
is
admirably free
from
polermc
and
partiality
Even
when
writing
of
controversial
matters
which
have
highly
emotional
overtones,
Professor
Ramazani
never
falters
in
his
deterrmnation
to
present
a
balanced
and
objective
view
of
affairs.
Indeed, his
cool,
detached
analysis
is
one
of
the
outstanding
features
of
the
book.
Few
Iranians, for
example,
will
admit
that
British
policy
towards
Iran
in
the
19th
and
early
20th
centuries
was
dictated
primarily
by
a
pathological
obsession
with
the
defence
of
India,
and
not
by
a
Machia-
vellian
desire
to
subjugate
Iran.
Even
fewer
Iranians
would be
prepared
fairly
to
state
the
case
which
can
be
brought
forward
in
justification,
in
the
context
of
the
global
conflict
against
Nazi
Germany
of
the
Anglo-Russian
invasion
of
Iran
in
August
1941.
Professor
Ramazam
severely
criticizes
Riza
Shah's
policy of
procrastination
which
provoked
Anglo-Soviet
intervention,
and
states
bluntly
that
on
that
occasion
the
Shah's
sense
of
political
realities
failed
him.
Throughout
this
book,
Professor
Ramazam
measures
Iranian
foreign
policy
against the
yardstick
of
political
realism.
He
defines
a
good
foreign
policy
as
"a
rational
foreign
policy
directed
toward
good
ends.
His
application
of
this
criterion
to
Iranian
foreign
policy
leads
him
to
voice
some
unpalatable
truths.
He
has
had
the
courage to
expose
the
lack
of
logic,
and
to
censure
the hysterical unrealism,
of
many
Iranian
Nationalists.
My
only
regret
is
that
the
author
concluded
his
study with
the
year
1941.
Perhaps Professor
Ramazani
could
be
persuaded
to
write
a
sequel,
and
give us
an
equally critical and
un-
biased
analysis
of
Iranian
foreign
policy
in
the
post-World
War
II
period.
University
of
Toronto
R.
M.
SAVORY
Latin
America
and
Caribbean
OVERTAKEN
BY
EVENTS.
The
Dominican Crisis
from
the
Fall
of
Trujillo
to
the
Civil
War.
By
John
Bartlow
Martin.
1966.
(Garden
City-
Toronto:
Doubleday.
xiv,
821pp.
$8.95)
John
Bartlow
Martin
is
an
American
with
a
strong
social-
consciousness.
He
was
also
U.S.
ambassador
to
the
Dominican
Republic
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