Many Western readers may find it strange that one of the most prominent Moslem writers and intellectuals has devoted a book to " Islamic terrorism."
But this, in fact, is one of the strengths of this unusual book. The most important part of the book is the last part in which the author argues a strong case for democratization in the Moslem world.
He insists that there will be no victory in the war against terrorism until and unless all Moslem nations develop open, democratic societies.

This may sound like a tall order.
But Taheri is convinced that the Moslem world will enter the mainstream of international life by adopting democracy.
A.K

Sell your rosary and buy a gun!
This is the chilling advice given to Moslem youths by Hassan al-Banna, an Egyptian schoolteacher who founded the terrorist organization known as the Ikhwan al-Moslemeen or Moslem Brotherhood.
Many took his advice and murdered a string of political leaders and intellectuals in sevberal Arab countries.
Over the half a century that followed the Ikhwan moderated their message and are now trying to impose their brand of Islam on Moslem societies through persuasion rather than murder.
But their message bred other radical groups- from the Fedayeen of Islam to which Khomeini belonged, to Osama Ben Laden's Al Qaeda.
This book tells the story of Islamist terrorism which dates back to 1400 years!
In a sense the author shows that Islam and terror are Siamese twins, inseparable.
The fact that the author himself is a Moslem, with an impeccable pedigree, makes the book more authoritative.
Above all, however, it is the fast pace of the book, the wealth of information it offers, and the honesty of its analysis that are impressive.
PBL

As the world marks the first anniverary of the 9/11 tragedies we ae bombarded with countless books and articles on whether or not Islam, the religion of some one billion people across the globe, had anything to do with the attacks.
In this book we learn that Islam and terror go back a long way. In fact, three of the first four Caliphs of Islam were assassinated by terrorists. Since then, political murder has been a feature of life in the lands of Islam.
The author, himself a Muslim, says that Muslims should acknowledge the role that terror has played, and continues to play, in their political lives with honesty.He recalls the case of German intellectuals who opted for self-denial in the face of Nazism, and advises Muslim intellectuals not to play ostrich as terror in the name of religion devastates thir lies and, more recently, the lives of others, too.
The Western reader may at times find it hard to follow who is who in this dense jungle of terrorists with unfamiliar names. But the message is clear:Osama Ben Laden is just one of countless beasts thriving in that jungle, and even not one of the most important. A READER IN INDIA

Those interested in the history of American diplomacy should read this excellent study of the United States' stormy relationship with Iran.
The author shows that far from being anti-American, most Iranians are very Americanophile, and have been for more than a century.
And yet the two have somehow managed to be cast as enemies.
When you read this book you find out that all is not the fault of the mullahs who have dominated Iranian politics for more than 20 years.
As Iran moves under the Washington limelight, taking the place that Iraq had a year ago, Americans would do well to read this book to find out the causes of the looming conflict.
A.Keame

This is easily the most accessible account of relations between the United States and Iran from the beginnings in the 19th century until the end of the 1980s.
The author shows that American influence in Iran started with missionaries and do-gooders over 150 years ago and ended with military advisors and business wheeler-dealers in the late 1970s. The 1980s witnessed a period of high tension which has continued, albeit to a less intense degree, up to the present.
A specially interesting segment of the book deals with secret negotiations between the mullahs of Tehran and the Reagan administration in 1985-86 with , believe it or not, Israel acting as mediator.
While the Americans were talking to the mullahs, even inviting the son of one of them to a night tour of the White House, with Lt. Colonel Oliver North acting as guide, they were also organising Iranian exiles to fight the Khomeinist regime in Tehran.
That segment includes narratives of scenes that read like chapters from a thriller with a good dose of irony.
On one occasion, clever Iranian exiles hired a professional actor to play the role of a prominent mullah from Tehran in secret talks with North in Germany. The Lt-Colonel fell for the trick and the CIA organised financial support for the exile group. On another occasion a CIA operative with little knowledge of things Iranian tried to recruit the first elected President of the Islamic Republic , offering a monthly stipend of $1500!
A must read for all those interested in international relations.
A READER IN NICE, FRANCE

More than just a biography, this is the story of a people, the Iranian people who have experienced one of the darkest phases of their long history.
The book is based on extensive research and written in a language that is both liveley and erudite.
I recommend it to all those interested in biography, hisory and politics.
Amelia

This scholarly biography of the late Ayatollah Khomeini portrays a world that is both far and near to us in the West.
It is far because it is based on values, traditions, practices and common memories that challenge, if not actually violate what we cherish most.
It is so near because today there are more than 25 million Muslims in Western Europe and North America who share many of Khomeini's beliefs, sentiments and prejudices.
Taheri, an Iranian author and scholar, has not limited his book to telling the story of just one man. For him, Khomeini's biography is an excuse, or an opportunity if you prefer, to depict the traditional Islamic society, warts and all.
I see that some reviewers have described the book as " a pleasure to read". In a sense, it may be. But I found it more of a chilling read. PLB. Paris, France

As a reader of biographies, I have always been surprised by the ease with which most writers either fall in love with their subject or use their pens to demolish it.
Here is one biography in which the writer, an Iranian journalist, manages to stay strictly objective. This does not mean that the author has any sympathy with Khomeini's special brand of Islamic politics. He does not. If anything, Taheri is a Westernized Iranian who would feel more at home in a Western liberal democracy than in any Islamic republic. But , to his credit, he has managed to see the world throgh the eyes of Khomeini.
He shows how Khomeini, who became an orphan when his father was killed in a land dispute, nurtured his resentment into a blazing fire of hatred that many decades later produced a bloodbath in Iran.
Hatred was also the basic strcture of the system that Khomeini built: hatred of women, hatred of the educated, hatred of the rich, and hatred of anyone who looked and thought differently.
Those who wish to understand how religion can be used for the most murdrous of enterprises, had better read this book. The experience is sobering. It is also a good read. W.Vederer

Almost a quarter of a century after he lost his throne Mohammad Reza Shah ¨Pahlavi remains at the centre of Iranian politics.
This book by Iran's leading journalist is the best on the late Shah because it reveals both the weakenesses ( all human) and the strengths of Pahlavi during his 37 year long reign.
At the same time this book could be read like a novel, full of twists and turns.
Rivniz Bibarg

As Iran comes under the limelights as the next candidate for regime change in the Middle East,anyone interested in the complex politics of that region could do no better than read this fascinating biography.
But even if a reader is not interested in politics , this book would still be a treasure trove as an enjoyable read.
The author, sympathetic to the Shah although never forgetting his shortcomings, shows that the Shah was a good man in a bad time.
Taheri compares the Shah to the wizard in the Wizard of Oz who says at the end of the film, when he is discovered, : I am not a bad man, just a bad wizard!
But even that may be a bit unkind.
Was Muhammad Reza Pahlavi a bad Shah?
Taheri does not believe so, and may be reflecting the sentiments fomented against the Shah by years of propaganda by his enemies.
The book shows that what the Shah offered Iran was the best deal posisble at the time.
As Iran braces for change it may still be the best deal it can get today.
A.Keame

I read this biography of the late Shah of Iran after I had read a biography of the man who deposed him: Ayatollah Khomeini.
Both biographies are written by Iranian journalist Amir Taheri who seems to have known the two men personally.
When I told my Iranian friend that I found the two, the Shah and Khomeini, to be twins, he was shocked.
He wanted to know: How could I compare a monster like Khomeini with a moderate modernizer like the Shah?
But Taheri shows that the two men emerged from the same culture of violence and hatred.
Khomeini was an orphan who wished to take revenge on the world. The Shah was a shyster who dreamed of becoming a dictator.
I know that Iranians are divided between those who think Khomeini was a saint and those who adore the Shah as the symbol of all that was good in Iran.
As an outsider, however,I can see how the Iranian people were cuaght between the two forms of despotism that the two men represented.
The book on Khomeini has a faster pace and is generally more fun to read. This is why I read it twice. But the book on the Shah also merits at least one close reading.WV

This is an interesting guide to the copmlicated politics of one of the most turbulent regions of the world.
The author, a journalist who covered the Middle East for more than two decades,reveals the underlying causes of the turmoil, the violence and the terrorist disease that have affected the region for so long.
He argues that only democratization could stabilize the Middle East and allow its many different peoples to live together in peace.
For the time being, however, there are only two countries that could be described as democracies in the Middle East: Israel and Turkey. But even there democracy suffers from serious restrictions.
Thus we are unlikely to see peace in the Middle East anytime soon. A READER IN PARIS FRANCE

The US-led coalition invades Iraq...
The Arab world is in turmoil....
Muslims everywhere are wondering what future they have.
The US, and the West in general, face terrorism of the most deadly kind for an unforeseeable future...
Israel is faced with years, may be decades, of mortal danger...
All these may be today's headlines. But they are all included and analyzed in this truly prophetic book that treats of the undercurrents of history in one of the most dangerous regions of the world.

The book, by an Iranian author an editor who now lives in the United States, first came out in the late 1980s but remains as up-to-date as any today. Its secret is that it does not bother with the passing appearances but digs deep into the profound and abiding causes of conflict.
I was given a dog-eared copy by a cousin, who had had it on her college reading list in 1992, and devoured the book at a single reading that lasted four or five hours.
Every minute of that time was well spent.
This is a sure classic.
Why is it not reissued so that many more people can read it?
Andrea Keame

This is a magnificent book, full of exciting analysis and new ways of assessing old assumptions.
Anyone who wishes to udnerstand what is in effect " the heart of darkness" in the political map of the world today should read this book.
Wendy Vederer, Bandar Sri Bagawan

Very little is known about the huge landmass that forms Central Asia and the Caucasian highlands with the Caspian Sea, the world's biggest inland body of water, in the middle.
This book tries to fill the gap by providing an exhaustive, and yet highly enjoyable, account of the history, geography and culture of the many different nations that inhabit the area.
The book was published a year before the fall of the Soviet Empire and clearly predicts the end of Communsim and the USSR.
But the chief interest of the book is the fact that it brings so many peoples out of obscurity.
In recent years such places as Chechnya have gained notoriety. We also know about the overspill of terrorism from Afghanistan into neighboring Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. But little material is available on the background of these conflicts. This scholarly book is, to my knoweldge, the most authoritative source available in English.
I receommend it to students and scholars as well as the intersted general reader. A READER

As this review is being written, the attack by Chechen guerrillas against a theatre in Moscow is still going on.
The outside world is trying to understand why so many desperate men and women decided to risk their own lives by seizing hundreds of innocent people hostage in a Moscow theatre?
The answer comes in this book to which I return whenever there is something dramatic between the Russians and the Muslim peoples who live amongst them or are teir neighbours.
I wish Vladimir Putin had read this book before vowing to crush the Chechens who have been at war against Russia, and for their own independence, since trhe 18th century.
Believe me it is not enough to say "terrorism and repression" to understand.
A READER IN PARIS FRANCE

The liberation of Afghanistan from the Taleban last year has attracted international attention to a vast area the size of the United States and known as Central Asia.
It was there that the colonial empires of the 19th century played what is known as The Great Game.
The term Central Asia is misleading because the lands concerned resemble a secluded area rather than one that is at the centre of things.
The region may achieve centrality because of its oil and natural gas resources, and the rivarly it is generating among America, the European Union, Russia, China, India, Iran, and Pakistan.
This book by an Iranian author and journalist tells the story of Islam in the entire Soviet Union of which Central Asia was part until 1991.
Much research has gone into this volumnious study, one might even say too much research, and the torrent of details may prove tiresome to some readers.
But the prose is fast paced and journalistic in the best sense of the term, thus compensating for the heaviness of the facts, names, dates and figures.
The book appeared more than a year before the collapse of the USSR but clearly predicts that event.
One would have preferred more detailed maps with this volume.
The author should do a sequel to bring us up to date about developments in the region in the past decade or so.
A READER

The Iranian fiasco stands out in the otherwise pretty nice list of American successes in the XX century. What makes it even more interesting is the fact than none other than Dr. Kissinger in his monumental volume 'Diplomacy' (written in 1994) doesn't mention the Iranian revolution, Ayatolla Khomeini, or the Shah. Perhaps it doesn't blend in to his views of the world. In Amir Taheri's splendid book about Iran however Kissinger's name is mentioned almost on every page. Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that Mr. Kissinger was an architect of the US Iranian policy prior to the revolution and trusted friend and advisor to the Shah. 'Nest of Spies' helps to understand why Mr.Kissinger, and with him the whole US policy vis-à-vis Iran, had failed to my view in both short and long run.

First, it was a story of love. Iran (Persia) was crazy about America. In the chapter 'Bountiful Americans' Taheri explains how thousands of Americans who came to Iran in late XIXth and early XXth centuries swept away the Iranians with their kindness, hard work and adherence to new technology and education. They were like Thomas Jefferson - the best, the enlightenment people, XVIIIth century philosophers at heart.
To the amazement of mullahs, even American Christian missionaries didn't convert the locals but were focused on setting up schools and hospitals, and other 'good works'.

In Nixon-Kissinger years this image, which started changing after WWII, was dramatically transformed. The country has become a US outpost in Middle East. The Iran was filled with influence peddlers, fixers, oil executives, and arms salesmen. Special personal relationships between the Shah and Nixon were emphasized. The strategic position of Iran on the Soviet border had insured Iran a role in 'Cold War' as very important US ally. Meanwhile the influence of mullahs was underestimated and they were even encouraged, because of their anticommunism. The repressive actions by the Shah were focused on the Moscow-sponsored Marxists and followers of Dr. Mohammad Mossadeq - leader of the oil-nationalization movement (and actually quite pro-western). As usual (and it reminds me about the Russian Revolution) the revolution was started by moderates with liberal slogans but was carried out by more ruthless extremists who didn't want to stop where moderates would stop.

The author shows intimate knowledge of Iran with its surprisingly complex political life. Despite everything, the US was probably a positive force in Iran, particularly in the beginning. In later years the US-Iran policy was managed by Dr. Kissinger and advocates of 'cloak and dagger' operations (i.e. 'gentlemen with noble intentions'). Also policy consistency was never an American strong point due to peculiarity of the US political system.

To my view, the US committed two major sins in Iran. First, it utterly failed to recognize the danger of rising Islamic fundamentalism. It made a huge mistake by secretly helping mullahs as a potent anticommunist force against Russia (as it did by sponsoring and arming the Mujaheddin in Afghanistan). The name of the game was to win the 'Cold War' almost at any price. The stakes were too high. Of course, the US came victorious in 'Cold War', but by using this double-edged weapon, it created a problem, which came back to haunt it. Unfortunately, the genie was let out of the bottle. The second sin was failure to see that the Shah was doomed. This highly secular and 'pro-western' ruler had in fact had gone against the traditions of his own country. I think he was limited like Tsar Nicolas before him, and not keen to the 'vox populus' - and therefore doomed. I highly recommend this book - it is provocative, but well written and thoughtful.

There are many high moments of black comedy in this very serious, and extremely well researched, history of relations between the United States and Iran.
One scene that offered me special mirth is when a group of Iranian exiles, working as professional opposition activists,hire an actor to play the role of a leading ayatollah who has supposedly come to Europe from Tehran to make a secret deal with the Reagan administration. The scam is to persuade Reagan envoys ,who meet the actor, to provide millions of dollars to a group of exiles that is supposedly able to recruit agents from within the clerical establishment in Tehran.
There are other no less comical scenes.
We see Lt.Col, Oliver North acting as tour guide for the son of Hashemi Rafsanjani, a mullah who,later became President of the Islamic Republic, during a night visit to the White House in Washington.
Before that we see CIA operative Kermit Roosevelt hiding behind a coal heater in Tehran,shaking with fear, as a coup plot that he was involved in seems to falter. (Later, once the coup has succeeded thanks to a popular uprising in Tehran, the same Roosevelt claims heroic deeds for himself!)
The book , written by an Iranian author and journalist, provides three important lessons in diplomacy:
1- Secret diplomacy almost always backfires.
2- Despotic regimes and democratic societies can never achieve genuine understanding on any issue for any length of time.
3- Anyone who thinks he can " write history" is a fool. History largely authors itself. Those who try to make it often end up flat on their faces.
The book reveals the Shah, known in the West as a decisive despot, as a weakling afflicted by Hamlet-like doubts.
This makes him more human but does not absolve him from responsibility in leading his people into an hisoric impasse that was broken only by a savage and exceptionally bloody revolution led by a group of reactionary and power-hungry mullahs. PB

It is, perhaps, a truism that the United States was not designed to play the role of a major global power.Its domestic politics often prevent it from deciding and purusuing a long-term policy vis-a-vis other nations and/or regions.
One example is Iran where trhe US appeared in the post World WarII era, as a force for Good as opposed to the two Evil forces of imperilaism, Britain and Russia that had martyrised Iran for almost a century.
The first Americans to appear in Iran were missionaries who set up the country's first modern schools and colleges and introduced such ideas as individual freedom and constiutional rule. In the IRanian constitutional revolution of the early 20th century, American missionaries were firmly on the side of the reformers. ( One American was killed by the anti-constitution forces).
The US, through President Harry S Truman, forced Stalin to take his troops out of northern Iran and abandon an old Russian pan to dismantle the Persian empire.
In the 1950s the US, through the famous Point 4 aid program, helped Iran build a network of schools, clinics and rural roads that gave almost a fifth of the population a minimum of public services for the first time. Point 4 also trained the fist managerial elite of Iran, including many of tis future Cabvinet ministers, governors and senior civil servants.
The US also backed Mossadeq, a fickle populist politician who came to symbolise the nationalisation of Iranian oil. When Mossadeq found himself unable to come up woith any enw ideas to take the country out of an impasse, the US abandoned him in favor of a pro-German former general Fazlollah Zahedi who had won the support of the Shah to become prime minister.
Gradually, the US was sucked into Iran's irrational and dangerous domestic politics. That was a big mistake.
In the 1970s the US encouraged Islamist groups in a bid to weaken the left, especially the Communist opposition. When the Shah was toppled and the Islamists took over in 1979 the US proposed a new alliance. This time, however, the mullahs, pressed on their left by the pro-Soviet left, had to adopt an anti-American stance. They approved the seizure of the American embassy,m initiated by the left, and made sure they sounded as anti-American as anyone.
This book tells the full story of a stromy relationship. It is based on solid evidence, including 53 volumes of documents seized at the US embassy in Tehran and published by the revolutionaries.
The author, a senior journalist befroe and shortly after the rervolution, also draws on his personal experience of events and the many interviews he conducted with both Iranian and American figures involved.
This book shows how Americans can be easily duped by wily
" orientals" who regard them as parvenus in the game of intenrnational politics. In one savory episode we see Iranian exiles hiring an actor to pay the role of a senior mullah in a meeting in Madrid with senior American officials. The hoax was aimed at getting money from the Americans for an operation to destabilsie the Khomeini regime. There was, of course, no such operation, althouh the Americans did pay!
The book has a crucial message: major powers should avoid becoming entangled in the politics of nations and regions they do not understand. In most cases it is best to let these peoples and regions make their own mistakes and pay for them. Intervention, even when for the best of intentions often leads to
catastrohpe for all concerned...

Want to know what makes people like Osama Bin Laden tick?
Tired of reading about WHAT and HOW without being told WHY?
Here is a book for you.
I give it just four stars because much of the reportage part of it is now out of date. (The edition I have came out in 1988.) But the analyical part remains intact, as valid as ever, a full education for our policymkaers dealing with radical Islam.
It tells you the " why" of Bin Laden and other Islamist terrorists who are active in more than 60 countries across the globe.
It also shows you that Islmist terrorism cannot be wished away by pious vows- mostly from our Islamologists. Nor can it be eradicated by B-52s and " daisy cutters".
Like Communism and Fascism, Islamism must be tackled in the political arena and defeated there.
To be able to fight that political war-which is a battle of ideas, after all- effectively, we need to know our true adversary.
This book is a good place to start.
A READER IN LONDON

I got hold of a copy of this book in a secondhand bookshop the other day. I think it should be reissued. It is the most succicnt account of the complex processes that produce someone, usually a teen-ager or young man, who is prepared to kill and to die in the name of Allah. The conventional wisdom is that this or that kind of religious terror is due to this or that political issue. In general this is true. But the author shows that terror is an integral part of any fanatical attachment to a doctrinal system.
The only reason I don't give this book five stars is that it reads like a who-is-who os Islamic terror up to the 1990s. Since then new names have been appeared. May be they will be included and studied in a new edition.
At a time the book was written it was the late Ayatollah Khomeini and the mullahs of Tehran who symbolised terror in the name of Islam. Today it is the turn of Osama Ben Laden and the Taliban mullahs in Afghanistan. But the psychological processes that leade to terror arte the same. A READER IN LONDON

This book shows that terror, including assassinations, has always had a place in Islam as an instrument of politics.
The reason is simple:Islam insists that its aims are noble, indeed are the ONLY aims worth having. Thus any means used in achieveing them is not only legitimate but mandatory.
The argument is best put in a chilling quotation from the late Ayatollah Khomeini: " The principal duty of Muslims is to kill and to die for Islam."
This book must be read by all bleeding-heart liberals who believe that the mere fact of " otherness" bestows some legitimacy on the most vicious and inhuman beliefs and practices, especially as long as they target the United States and the West in general.
Written by a Muslim journalist and author the book is based on impressive research and scholarship. At the same time it can be read by the lay reader interested in understanding Islamic terorism from the inside. INTERESTED READER