Ray Takeyh is a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, specializing in Iran, U.S. foreign policy, and Middle Eastern politics. He contributed essays and analysis to The Weekly Standard between 2013 and 2017, frequently examining the history of U.S.-Iran relations and American diplomacy in the region. He is the author of several books on Iran and has served in the U.S. State Department.
William Faulkner once mused that the past is never dead, in fact it’s not even past. The story of the coup that toppled Iranian prime minister Mohammad Mossadeq in 1953 may not be dead, but it is unhinged from history. Tall tales by a scion of the American establishment—former CIA agent and…
In recent years, Dwight Eisenhower has emerged as the Democratic party's Republican of choice. Barack Obama's many sycophantic accolades have even compared Obama to the cool-headed soldier who liberated Europe. It's all there: a general who warned against the military-industrial complex, a…
In recent years, Dwight Eisenhower has emerged as the Democratic party’s Republican of choice. Barack Obama's many sycophantic accolades have even compared Obama to the cool-headed soldier who liberated Europe. It's all there: a general who warned against the military-industrial complex, a…
Secret diplomacy has a special place in the annals of American history. Henry Kissinger’s furtive trip to China has been acclaimed as the quintessence of diplomacy. The Obama administration, steeped in its own brand of realism, is another devotee of secret talks, meeting with Iranian officials in…
It has long been the conceit of Iran specialists and political commentators that Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini was not informed that militant students intended to take over the U.S. embassy in Iran in 1979. The Western intelligentsia has vouched for the Islamic Republic and claimed that the hostage…
There has been much head scratching over the years about the essence of Barack Obama’s foreign policy. Now with another member of Obama’s cabinet, former defense secretary as well as CIA director Leon Panetta, offering up a memoir of disagreement and disenchantment, it’s clear that the…
This year marks the sixtieth anniversary of Operation Ajax—the notorious CIA plot that is supposed to have ousted Iranian prime minister Muhammad Mossadeq. In the intervening decades, the events of 1953 have been routinely depicted as a nefarious U.S. conspiracy that overthrew a nationalist…