Product Description

This timely and fast-paced book by celebrated Iranian-born journalist Amir Taheri examines the history of the Khomeinist movement in Iran to show how it is genetically programmed for war. It will also show how Khomeinsim can be defeated, enabling Iran to close the chapter of the revolution and return to the global mainstream. This book is mandatory for anyone concerned about the future of Iran, terrorism, and the prospects for middle east peace.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #43100 in Books
• Published on: 2009-03-25
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 413 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781594032400
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
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Review
Written in sorrow rather than anger, The Persian Night clearly and calmly describes Iran's descent into unreality. It is a masterwork of information and argument. Formerly editor of Iran's most influential paper, Amir Taheri is now perforce an exile but he remains in touch with all sorts of insiders. In addition to his native Farsi, he is fluent in Arabic and the main European languages. Frequent quotations from Persian poetry, old or contemporary, reveal his love of his native country and its culture, but he is equally likely to make good use of Plato and Cicero, Hobbes and Goethe, or even Frantz Fanon to illustrate a point. More than ironic, it seems outright improbable that one and the same Iran could be home to ignorant bigots like Ayatollah Khomeini and his successors--in particular the vicious and narrow-minded president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad--and a sophisticated humanist like Taheri.

"Killing is the same as mercy," Khomeini wrote. A favorite dictum of his was "To kill and be killed are the supreme duties of Muslims." He also liked to say that war is a "divine blessing." That was the point of departure for the transformation of the state into a cause, which according to Taheri dates to a conference of Islamists in Sudan in 1993. At the time, the collapse of the Soviet Union was taken as evidence that God was indeed making Muslims masters of the world. The turn of the United States had now come.

To prepare for jihad and mass mobilization, the ayatollahs had to manufacture multiple fears and hatreds--notably of women, the U.S., and Israel, all reduced to stereotypes that bear no relation to reality. Taheri points out, usefully, that the ayatollahs and Ahmadinejad do not have enemies with whom it might be possible to compromise; they have foes who have to be conquered and subdued.

There is hopeful news, however.

Iranians know perfectly well that they are victimized by those claiming to be acting on their behalf. The man in the street understands that the U.S. befriended Iran in the past and would willingly do so again, and to call it the "Great Satan" is mere fascist sloganeering. Similarly, the popular perception of Jews tends to be positive and does not correspond to Ahmadinejad's raving about Israel as a "dead rat" and a "cancerous tumor." Women do not accept subordination. Workers demand rights. Minorities are close to armed revolt. Nationalism is likely to prove strong enough for a return to the conventional nation-state. The conditions and the timing for regime change, Taheri maintains, seem right.

In the old days of the Cold War, brave spirits used to write books that came to grips with the ideological monstrosity of the Soviet Union. They too had no choice but to publish in the West. In the end, they were vindicated. Honor now goes to The Persian Night for exposing the ideological monstrosity of Iran. --David Pryce-Jones, National Review

Review
"The Islamic Republic of Iran has three phobias," according to Iranian expatriate journalist Amir Taheri. "Women, Jews and America." Forget bombs. Maybe we should send in Barbra Streisand.

Iran is a standing challenge to Western liberal notions of "the intrinsic worth of the individual, freedom of conscience and the rule of law," not that any of that bothers the regime, Taheri says. He describes the activities of the Islamic Morality Brigades, the state-supported Holocaust denial movement, Iran's practice of executing dissidents and homosexuals - the rich tapestry of contemporary Iranian life that should make the country an international embarrassment but for the fact that the regime feels absolutely no shame.

Meanwhile, the United States' relationship with Iran has had its embarrassing moments, such as when former President Clinton said that Iran is "the only country where progressive ideas enjoy a vast constituency" or when US Ambassador to the United Nations Andrew Young called the Ayatollah Khomeini "a twentieth-century saint."

Mohammed Raza Pahlavi, the former Shah, who is usually dismissed by Western intellectuals as a brutal puppet, was the real progressive saint compared with his successor. Indeed, it is useful to remember that his liberal, pro-Western policies made Iran "the first Muslim nation to acknowledge women as citizens with equal rights."

Taheri's Persian Night presents the true nature of the regime in Tehran, its motives, objectives and beliefs. Since the Obama administration seems to think that much can be gained from open dialogue, and Washington think tanks hum with talk of a "grand bargain" with Iran to settle the outstanding issues of the Middle East, we must appreciate the people with whom we are dealing. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, elected in June 2005 under the oddly familiar slogan "We Can!" has recently stated, "Our mission in the arena of foreign affairs is to present the idea of Pure Islam as the only path for the salvation of mankind to all nations. We have to smash the existing models in the world."

Taheri concludes that negotiation with the Iranian regime is a waste of time; it would encourage optimism in the West but leave the Khomeinist regime intact and its objectives unchanged. Real progress can only come from regime change from within. Iran is "a heaving volcano, ready to explode," from a variety of internal pressures, and the best role for the United States is to "use its immense bully pulpit" to publicize the cause of the oppressed people of Iran. Can this be effective? The Soviet Union fell, Taheri argues, "so why not Iran, and why not now?"

A nice thought, but given the effectiveness of Tehran's secret police and the general climate of fear in Iran, one wonders who can get the job done.

Review
The story of Iran in the past three decades is a tragic tale best told by someone who has lived and felt it in his blood. As Executive Editor-in-Chief of Kayhan, Iran's biggest daily newspaper, Amir Taheri was in a special position to observe the shaping of the forces that led to the Khomeinist seizure of power in 1979. One of Iran's leading intellectuals, Taheri was at the centre of a national debate over the country's future course- a debate that took place at universities, in the media, and within the framework of cultural associations, spanning almost a whole decade.

In The Persian Night: Iran under the Khomeinist Revolution, Taheri offers an intelligent and critical narrative of his people's experience over the past three decades and offers some pointers for the future.

The Persian Night shows that the system created by the Khomeinists is based on three lies expressed in the" triple oxymoron" of The Islamic Republic of Iran. However, the Khomeinist regime is neither Islamic nor republican. And, although located in Iran, it is not Iranian either.

This has led to a "Jekyll-and-Hyde" situation in which two Irans exist side-by-side. Iran as an expression of the Islamism is an existential threat to both the Iranian nation and all those who reject obscurantism and religious threat. Iran as the expression of a rich culture and civilization, however, is a builder of civilizations and a force for peace in the Middle East. Khomeinism is using the people of Iran as hostages, hiding behind this "human shield" to carry out its dark schemes. Seen from the Western democracies' point of view, Iran, as the expression of the Iranian heritage, is a friend while Iran, as a vehicle for the projection of power by Khomeinism is an enemy.

However, The Persian Night is more than a simple history of Khomeinism. It also deconstructs the total structure of the regime to reveal its points of strength and weakness. More importantly, perhaps, The Persian Night offers the broad outline of policies that could help defeat Khomeinism as the latest manifestation of totalitarianism to develop ambitions of global conquest. In the process, the reader is also presented with pen portraits of the main actors in the Iranian drama and a broader depiction of their social and cultural background.

Throughout the 1980s, Taheri was a tireless campaigner for the freedom of press across the globe. He represented The International Press Institute (IPI) in a number of trials of journalists in Turkey, Algeria and Morocco, and helped young journalists from the Muslim world to secure training courses in Europe. In 1990, he was one of 12 editors, mostly from Western Europe, who helped create the first free school of journalism in Moscow, then the capital of the USSR.

Customer Reviews

A JOURNEY INTO THE SOUL OF IRAN

This is an unusual book. It starts like a political reportage about the twists and turns of the Iranian regime's radical policies but, very soon, develops into a journey to the depths of the Persian soul. The book introduces the concept of two Irans: one that is an ancient nation with a young population looking to the future while proud of its past. The other is a regime that has tried to efface the nation's historic memory and tries to keep Iran outside the mainstream of human life. This split personality produces erratic behavior that confuses both Iranians and outsiders.
Although the book offers a wealth of political information on present-ay Iran, its chief distinction lies in its emphasis on the role of culture in ultimately determining the destiny of the nation.
Some might see this book as a manifesto for Iranian nationalism at a time that the Islamist regime is trying to efface the very sentiment of Iranian-ness, replacing it with a curious reinterpretation of Islam mixed with elements of pseudo-Marxism, banal anti-Americanism and old-style anti-Semitism. Te reader of the book would conclude that the people who rule Iran today do not resemble, let alone represent, a majority of Iranians. These rulers appear like aliens from other planets, individuals with no roots in Iran's old history and culture that long pre-date the emergence of Islam as an Arab faith.
Of special interest to policymakers is the section devoted to the controversial concept of "regime change". Here the book is full of surprises, offering a range of new and tantalizing ideas that cut across partisan positions.
By heavily relying on sources within Persian literature and Iranian history, the author manages to put some major issues into proper context. These include the relationship between Islam and Iran, the role of the clergy in Iranian society, and the centuries old struggle of successive generations of Iranians for freedom. This is a political book written with the beauty of a poetical language. After all, Persians believe that only poetry can express the ultimate truth.

CRAZY EDDIE VS. MARTYR HUSSEIN
Although this is a book ostensibly about Iran's experience in the past 30 years, it deals with much larger themes, including what one might calla " clash of cultures." The author shows how difficult it is for Western decision-makers to understand a mind-set that does not obey any of the rules they are used to. At the other side, however, the Khomeinists understand the Western mind-set well. Many of them were educated in the West and lived in Europe or America. They know the weaknesses and strengths of the West and have learned how to manipulate them.
Taheri uses the image of Crazy Eddie to describe President Barack Obama's offer of unconditional talks with the Islamic Republic. He then puts that image in opposition to that of Martyr Hussein, and shows how the two would never be able to coexist in peace.
For all that, this is an optimistic book. The author shows how Iranian society is liberating itself from the Islamic stranglehold. he also suggests some intriguing ideas for opposing and ultimately overthrowing the present regime.

SHOW ME YOUR BEARD, I TELL YOU WHO YOU ARE
The amazing thing about this book is the ability of the author to slalom between high-flown schoalrship and down-to-earth witty osbervations into social and political behavior.
The sections dealing with the impact of Islam on the Iranian psyche and history, determining the Persian "ipseity", belong to the first catgeory. In the second category we find a whole set of "semiological" observations that reveal Islam's obsession with the appearances.
It really matters what kind of beard a man grows, and what kind of head-gear a woman wears. Men could be ostricized if not killed for the wrong beard. Women risk being disfigured by vitriol if they do not wear the right form of headcover.
Paradoxically, the book could be read as a defnese of Islam as Taheri shows in great detail how trhe Khomeinist ideology by-pases or totally ignores many of Islam's well-estalished principles and practices.