The eagle and the lion : the tragedy of American-Iranian relations / James A. Bill.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 449-461) and index.

America and Iran: early entanglements -- Petroleum politics and the American intervention of 1953 -- The politics of reaction and Pahlavi retrenchment, 1954-1961 -- An interlude of reform: John F. Kennedy and Iran, 1961-1963 -- Counterreform, Lyndon Johnson, and Pahlavi retrenchment, 1963-1970 -- Iran, American, and the triumph of repression, 1971-1977 -- America and the Iranian revolution, 1977-1979 -- The Islamic Republic and America: ruptured relations and a venture in rapprochement -- Pahlavism in America: the informal politics of foreign policy-making -- The United States in Iran: diplomats, intelligence agents, and policy making -- The politics of foreign policy failure: a system of reinforcing errors.

A leading scholar of Iran explores the American-Iranian relationship--once a close friendship--penetrating the hidden social and political processes of both countries and tracing their joint history from the 1940s through the bizarre Iran-Contra affair and its aftermath. Illustrated. Bill, director of the Center for International Studies at the College of William and Mary, has written the most comprehensive, clarifying and revealing study to date of a foreign-policy failure he calls a "catastrophe of tremendous proportion." Analyzing the gradual turnabout in a relationship once very close but now bitterly estranged, he identifies the U.S.-engineered downfall of Muhammad Musaddiq in 1953 as the point when many Iranians began to perceive America no longer as a friend and protector but as "an imperialistic, oppressive external force." Much of the text concerns American ignorance in action. Readers will also find an in-depth analysis of methods by which private citizensled by the Rockefeller familypromoted their own interests in Iran. Bill draws 12 major foreign-policy lessons at the end, including this one: "Any unquestioned, dominant policy premise in Washington should be treated with skepticism and subjected to careful and continual questioning." Illustrations. History Book Club alternate.