by David Crist
U.S. ambassador to Iraq Ryan Crocker (left), Iranian ambassador Hassan Kazemi Qomi (right), and Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki (top center) meet in the Iraqi prime minister’s office in Baghdad on May 28, 2007. It was one of the few face-to-face meetings between Iran and the United States in thirty years but failed to resolve the two nations’ differences. (Associated Press)
Iranian nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri with his son after his arrival at Tehran airport, July 15, 2010. He defected to the United States, where he provided valuable information about Iran’s nuclear program, only to return to Iran claiming he had been kidnapped. (Associated Press)
Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (center) tours the uranium-enriching centrifuges at the Natanz nuclear facility, April 8, 2008. (Associated Press)
January 13, 2012: Iranians carry the flag-draped coffin of Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, the director of the Natanz uranium enrichment facility in central Iran, who was killed when two assailants on a motorcycle attached a magnetic bomb to his car in Tehran. He was the victim of an assassination campaign against Iran’s nuclear program that Iran blamed on Israel and the United States. (Associated Press)
General James Mattis (left) confers with Defense Secretary Robert Gates in Amman, Jordan, March 25, 2011. A thoughtful tactician and warrior, Mattis is the latest American military commander to confront Iran in an increasingly tense situation in the Persian Gulf. (Department of Defense)
An Iranian antiship missile is launched during an exercise near the Strait of Hormuz. Iran has developed an unorthodox military force capable of inflicting significant damage to the U.S. Navy in the event of a new war in the Persian Gulf. (Fars News Agency/Department of Defense)
Better days: President Jimmy Carter meets with America’s stalwart ally the shah of Iran at the White House in 1977. (Carter Library)
American diplomats and marines are paraded before the news media after pro-Khomeini students stormed the U.S. embassy in Tehran, November 4, 1979. (Associated Press)
President Carter (left) confers with his national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski (center), and Secretary of State Cyrus Vance (right) near the White House Rose Garden. Carter’s advisers were deeply divided on how to respond to the Iranian Revolution with Brzezinski advocating for an Iranian military coup and Vance supporting a transition to democracy. (Associated Press)
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini waves to a massive, enthusiastic crowd shortly after his return to Iran from exile following the overthrow of the shah, February 1979. (Getty Images)
Marine general Paul X. Kelley (seen here as the marine corps commandant in 1986) commanded the first U.S. multiservice military command dedicated to the Middle East. Kelley pushed for a permanent American military command to defend the Persian Gulf, which was a controversial decision within the Pentagon. (Department of Defense)
The battalion headquarters building for the marines in Beirut, Lebanon, in the spring of 1983. While the marines tried to remain neutral in the Lebanese civil war, the Reagan administration’s support for the Christian-dominated government made them targets of the Iranian-backed Shia militias. (U.S. Marine Corps)
Sunday morning, October 23, 1983: a massive mushroom cloud rises above south Beirut after a suicide bomber rammed a truck packed with explosives into the marine battalion headquarters. (U.S. Marine Corps)
Aftermath: rescuers dig for survivors amid the rubble of the battalion headquarters in Beirut. The death toll of American servicemen was 241. (U.S. Marine Corps)
President Ronald Reagan (left) meets with his national security team to discuss retaliation after the bombing of the marines in Beirut. Foreground: Vice President George H. W. Bush; seated to Reagan’s left: Secretary of State George Shultz; standing right: Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger. (Reagan Library)
Deputy National Security Adviser John Poindexter urged retaliation for the bombing of the marine barracks in Lebanon. But despite its public pronouncements, the Reagan administration never responded militarily to the marines’ worst day since Iwo Jima in 1945. (Associated Press)
Maverick admiral James “Ace” Lyons (left) greets Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger (right) in Hawaii on June 18, 1987. Lyons used the occasion to push for his own secret plan to wage war on Iran. (James Lyons)
CIA director William Casey arrives at Capitol Hill on December 11, 1986, to answer questions regarding selling weapons to Iran in an attempt to develop ties with moderates in the Iranian government. Casey saw Iran through the lens of the Cold War and worked to rebuild CIA operations inside Iran. (Associated Press)
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral William Crowe, briefs Reagan and his national security advisers in the White House Situation Room on the plan to protect Kuwaiti oil tankers from Iranian attack. The administration saw this as an opportunity to undo the damage of the Iranian arms sales and deploy military forces into the volatile Persian Gulf. (Reagan Library)
The USS Stark burns after being accidently hit by two Iraqi missiles, killing thirty-seven sailors. (Department of Defense)
A U.S. naval convoy of Kuwaiti tankers transits the Persian Gulf in the summer 1987. As a key supporter of Iraq in its war against Iran, Kuwait became the target of Iranian reprisal attacks. (Department of Defense)
The commander of U.S. Central Command, General George Crist, USMC (left), talks with Navy lieutenant Paul Hillenbrand about operations against Iranian attack boats. The marine general commanded all U.S. forces in the Middle East during two tense years of a quasi-war with Iran. (Paul Hillenbrand)
SEALs storm the Iranian ship Iran Ajr. In one of the biggest intelligence coups in recent history, American special operations forces attacked the Iranian ship while it was laying mines aimed at sinking U.S. warships. (Department of Defense)
The crew of an American patrol boat rescues Iranian Revolutionary Guard sailors from the Iran Ajr. They had abandoned their ship the night before after being strafed by U.S. Army helicopters, September 22, 1987. (Department of Defense)
To defeat swarms of Iranian small boats, the U.S. military developed an imaginative solution by converting the large oil construction barge Hercules into a floating base for navy patrol boats, elite SEALs, and army special forces helicopters. Its timely deployment in October 1987 blunted a large Iranian naval attack on Saudi Arabia. (U.S. Special Operations Command)
Table of Contents
Maps
Preface
ONE. “A L ITTLE K ING IN Y OUR H EART ”
TWO. A N EW G RAND S TRATEGY
THREE. B ARBED -W IRE B OB
FOUR. A D EN OF S PIES
FIVE. A F IG L EAF OF N EUTRALITY
SIX. S HARON’S G RAND D ESIGN
SEVEN. A S PECTACULAR A CTION
EIGHT. T HE A MERICAN H AMLET
NINE. S LEEPY H OLLOW
TEN. A RMS FOR THE A YATOLLAH
ELEVEN. A R ING ON THE A MERICAN F INGER
TWELVE. T HE W AKE -U P C ALL
THIRTEEN. T HE I NVISIBLE H AND OF G OD
FOURTEEN. A W INDOW OF O PPORTUNITY
FIFTEEN. T HE N IGHT S TALKERS
SIXTEEN. A V ERY C LOSE C ALL
SEVENTEEN. N O H IGHER H ONOR
EIGHTEEN. G OOD -B YE , C APTAIN N ASTY
NINETEEN. T HE T ERRIBLE C LIMAX
TWENTY. G OODWILL B EGETS G OODWILL
TWENTY-ONE. W AR OR P EACE
TWENTY-TWO. A N A TROCITY
TWENTY-THREE. A N A XIS OF E VIL
TWENTY-FOUR. D EFEAT OR V ICTORY
TWENTY-FIVE. T HE F REEDOM A GENDA
TWENTY-SIX. A Q UASI -W AR
TWENTY-SEVEN. A N E XTENDED H AND AND A C LOSED F IST
E PILOGUE
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index
chive.