"Guardians of the Revolution" provides useful analysis of the Iranian regime since the founding of the Islamic Republic. Takeyh does a good job describing the various factions within Iran's government and the challenges that moderates faced when trying to normalize relations with the West. I have not read any other books on Iran, so I can't really judge the accuracy of Takeyh's portrait of Iran. But my impression is that he does know Iran very well.



My main complaint about the book is that Takeyh fails to properly set the stage for the benefit of readers who don't already know the history of Iran prior to the revolution. While he does provide some background on the father of the revolution, Ayatollah Khomeini, he says very little about the regime of the Shah which the United States supported. Doing this would have helped readers better understand the antagonism that many in Iran feel toward the United States. While the policy makers in the West who this book is targeted to might already know the full history of Iran, the average reader probably does not.

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