I think there is a lot of false nostalgia for the Shaw here. While the Shaw was pro-west and the current Iranian regime is hardly going to win any prizes, the fact is if the Shaw had been doing so well he never would have been overthrown. To lay the blame for Iran at the feet of Carter not only ignores the actions of other US Presidents starting with Eisenhower but also overlooks the abuses and incompetents of the Shaw. The author is equal short in his annalist of the Iran-Iraq war describing it as a war of ideology, essentially accepting Hussein’s propaganda and ignoring the internal situation in Iraq prior to the war.

To me this looks like a political hatchet job trying to masquerade as history.