February/John 2

The Twilight War: The Secret History of America's Thirty-Year Conflict with Iran

by David Crist

THE TWILIGHT WAR The Secret History of America's Thirty-Year Conflict with Iran was written by David Crist and was published by the Penguin Group in 2012. At 638 pages, it is an excellent exposé of human frailties, misunderstandings, missed opportunities, mistrust, hate, blame, and outright failures. It is a lengthy work of non-fiction about war and peace. (A nod to Leo Tolstoy)

Mr. Crist undertook a vast amount of research in a laudable writing to unravel the intricate twists and turns associated with the various governments' dealings that helped make this conflict the exercise in frustration that it has become. As one president or group of government officials would tentatively reach out in an offering of dialogue, the opposite numbers on the other side would flatly refuse those overtures. When on some occasions they were accepted, talks would soon stall from fear, stubbornness, misinterpretation, or political conflicts within a respective country itself. 

1997: Iran was giving the maritime shipping of other countries a bad time by attacking with automatic fire from speedboats (Boghammars) and helicopters. With the possibility of more destruction, their minelayers, two larger warships, jet fighters, and Silkworm missiles threatened as well. Tanker traffic coming into and going out of the Persian Gulf was often in peril, plus there was the threat of economic choking by blockading the Straits of Hormuz. This was bookended by the 1979 takeover of the country by the Ayatollah Khomeini and the stalemates over nuclear disarmament talks from the past decade, and all interlaced with intrigues from intelligence communities. 

Covered in this book are also the military, political, governmental, and State departmental inner workings of Iran and America, other countries as well, plus the UN. Mr. Crist's writing sometimes bounces back and forth between the incidents being related and some pertinent events that had happened years before. These could be both enlightening and frustrating. Overall this is a very good read by a gentleman who is a USMCR colonel that served in both Gulf Wars and the conflict in Afghanistan, who also earned a PhD in middle eastern history. 

As an update since the book was written - perhaps if there is no nuclear war started as a result of the 2015/16 agreement, it could be very interesting to see what kind of book Mr. Crist would write concerning the intricate but well researched relationship of Iran and America by the year 2045.