Treacherous Alliance

Citation

Parsi, Trita. Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States. Yale University Press, 2007. Google Books Link

Excerpts

Page	Quote	Notes
8	”Khomeini issued a ‘fatwa’, a religious decree, delaring that Jews were to be protected”
8	”The Jewish member of the Iranian majlis, or parliament (most religious minorities are guaranteed a seat in the parliament), Maurice Mohtamed, has been outspoken in his condemnation of Ahmadinejad’s comments.”
9	”Persian Jews [from Israel] travel from Israel to Turkey, where they mail back their Israeli passports and take out their Iranian passports as they hop on the next flight to Tehran.”
22	”both [Israel and Iran] saw […] Nasser as the main villain of the Middle East. Next to Israel, Iran’s pro-Western emperor was one of Egypt’s prime targets.”
22	”Iran was particularly concerned about […] Arab claims over Iran’s southern oil-rich province of Khuzestan.”
287	”The PLO opened its training camps [in the late 1960s] to Iranian opposition elements that waged a military campaign against the Shah’s regime”
287	Ben-Gurion to Dwight D. Eisenhower, Jul 24 1958: “with the purpose of erecting a high dam against the Nasserist-Soviet tidal wave, we have begun tightening our links with several states on the outside of the perimeter of the Middle East – Iran, Turkey, and Ethiopia […] which might save Lebanon’s freedom and, maybe in time, Syria’s”	I have no idea how this cable… transitions from Iran Turkey Ethiopia to Lebanon and Syria?
31	Iran supported UNSC 242 (inadmissibility of WB+Gaza+Sinai+Golan occupation) “not to please the Arabs, but because we had problems with Baluchistan and Azerbaijan” (Iranian mission to UN)
58	”much of the money the United States spent on Middle East oil was channeled right back to Washington through the Shah’s military shopping. From 1972 to 1977, Iran accounted for one-third of all American arms sales”	I keep reading it backwards, as “America accounted for one-third of all Iranian arms purchases”, bc my brain can’t comprehend
64	”By March 1951, only 8,000 of Iran’s 100,000-strong Jewish community had made Israel their new home […] a 1974 survey concluded the 8,000 left ‘overwhelmingly for economic and not ideological reasons‘“
76	”The US State Department estimated that three-quarters of Israel’s oil imports originated from Iran in 1970”
99	”The united Arab front against Iran was unmistakable once Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, and Oman formed the GCC in 1981, a security body essentially aimed at balancing Iran”
106	”roughly 80% of the weaponry bought by Tehran immediately after the onset of the war [Iran-Iraq War] originated in Israel”
126	”Relations with Saudi Arabia almost became irreparable in 1987 after Saudi police shot dead 275 Iranian pilgrims during the annual hajj in Mecca”
143	In the late 1990s, “Taliban forces executed eleven Iranian diplomats in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e Sharif, an incident that almost led to a full-scale war between Iran and the Taliban”
144	From 1991 to 1999, “Iran began to develop a ballistic missile [Shahab-III] based on the North Korean Nodong-1”
147	With the fall of the USSR, “suddenly all conventional military threats against Israel almost completely evaporated”
158	“‘We were facing the demographic bomb, the Palestinian womb’, explained Dan Meridor, a prominent Likud politician”
166	”The Saudis spent more than $40billiononarmsin1991,atatimewhenIra{n}^{\prime }smilitaryexpenditurestoodat$6.7 billion.”
170	”Rabin asked rhetorically what the real threat to Israel was – the weak Palestinians or the rising Iranians?“
284	”Sunni insurgents – supported by elements in Jordan and Saudi Arabia – were responsible for more than 90% of American casualties in Iraq.”

Zotero Metadata

Abstract

This award-winning study traces the shifting relations between Israel, Iran, and the U.S. since 1948—including secret alliances and treacherous acts. Vitriolic exchanges between the leaders of Iran and Israel are a disturbingly common feature of the news cycle. But the real roots of their enmity mystify Washington policymakers, leaving no promising pathways to stability. In Treacherous Alliance, U.S. foreign policy expert Trita Parsi untangles to complex and often duplicitous relationship among Israel, Iran, and the United States from 1948 to the present. In the process, he reveals shocking details of unsavory political maneuverings that have undermined Middle Eastern peace and disrupted U.S. foreign policy initiatives in the region.   Parsi draws on his unique access to senior American, Iranian, and Israeli decision makers to present behind-the-scenes revelations that will surprise even the most knowledgeable readers: Iran’s prime minister asks Israel to assassinate Khomeini; Israel reaches out to Saddam Hussein after the Gulf War; the United States foils Iran’s plan to withdraw support from Hamas and Hezbollah; and more. Treacherous Alliance not only revises our understanding of the recent past, it also spells out a course for the future.An Arthur Ross Book Award Silver Medal Winner A Choice Magazine Outstanding Academic Title

Metadata

FirstAuthor:: Parsi, Trita
Title:: Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States ShortTitle:: Treacherous Alliance Year:: 2007
Citekey:: parsi_treacherous_2007
itemType:: book
Publisher:: Yale University Press
ISBN:: 978-0-300-13806-1