Scott Anderson’s ‘King of Kings’

King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic MiscalculationScott Anderson, Doubleday, 512 pp., $35, August 2025

The Islamic Revolution in Iran, the collapse of the pro-United States Pahlavi monarchy, and its replacement by a hostile Islamist regime marked the beginning of a new phase of near continuous U.S. engagement in the Middle East. Nearly 50 years later, we’ve seen several wars, one lengthy occupation, and (most recently) the first major U.S. military action against Iran itself.

King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic MiscalculationScott Anderson, Doubleday, 512 pp., $35, August 2025

The Islamic Revolution in Iran, the collapse of the pro-United States Pahlavi monarchy, and its replacement by a hostile Islamist regime marked the beginning of a new phase of near continuous U.S. engagement in the Middle East. Nearly 50 years later, we’ve seen several wars, one lengthy occupation, and (most recently) the first major U.S. military action against Iran itself.

King of Kingsthe rollicking new account from Scott Anderson, brings the cataclysmic events of 1978-79 back into focus. The book emphasizes the inertia of U.S. policymaking and the chaotic, unforeseen nature of political change—themes that resonate at a time when Iran policy has stalled, even as domestic developments suggest powerful and unpredictable shifts are on the horizon.

King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic MiscalculationScott Anderson, Doubleday, 512 pp., $35, August 2025

As a subject, the Iranian revolution makes for a thrilling read, and Anderson leans into the pulpier aspects of his narrative. Much of it will be familiar to anyone with even a passing knowledge (or memory) of the events in question: a rapidly modernizing Iran, a radicalizing population, an absent and an indecisive shah who leans heavily on an aloof United States. Add in neglect and myopia among policymakers in D.C. and Tehran, and you have a recipe for revolution, culminating in dramatic street clashes and the triumphant return of an exiled theocrat who vaults from obscurity to absolute power in the span of just a few months.

Anderson lends the familiar story new color and depth via recently discovered sources and interviews with some of the participants, most notably Empress Farah Pahlavi, wife of the ousted shah. Of particular importance to Anderson’s story are the contributions from well-placed and informed U.S. officials who sensed the shah’s house of cards was about to collapse and tried, in vain, to press President Jimmy Carter’s distracted administration into action. Among Anderson’s cast of Cassandras are Gary Sick, Henry Precht, and—in Anderson’s biggest coup—Michael Metrinkoa fluent Farsi speaker who watched the revolution unfold in both the provinces and the capital.

Anderson is more interested in unraveling the chaotic nature of the revolution than establishing its causes. Events take on a whirlwind aspect, with random intervals of calm punctured by sudden and unexpected bouts of chaos. Ultimately, though, he suggests the events of 1978-79 were more or less inevitable.

In Anderson’s telling, there are two reasons for this. The first is personal. When the United States intervened in August 1953, helping to overthrow the constitutionalist (though increasingly autocratic) Mohammed Mosaddeq, officials choose to empower Mohammed Reza Pahlavi to lead a new pro-Western government. Alternately a tragic or villainous character, the shah, in Anderson’s telling, is a prisoner to history. Mohammed Reza was “a weak man playing at being a hard man,” who tries to lead his country but lacks the skill to navigate a crisis and the nerve to keep himself in power through force.

The second reason is structural and stems from the nature of U.S. relations with the shah’s Iran. Having empowered the shah in 1953, the United States has no choice but to back him through the subsequent years, as the coup against Mosaddeq eliminated any viable alternative. The shah became the most important U.S. ally in the region—as well as a key supplier of oil and a major purchaser of U.S. weapons systems. As a result, U.S. policy became trapped, and acknowledging the increasingly shaky nature of the shah’s rule was deemed contrary to U.S. interests. In other words, Washington’s failed policy was willed into being through inertia.

Though he demonstrates an acute understanding of internal Iranian dynamics, Anderson is sharpest when he focuses on the U.S. element. The failure of the U.S. government to detect the imminent collapse of the shah emerges as a clear-cut example of intelligence failure. The takeaway is that policy must be dynamic, creative, and, above all, informed by a clear reading of facts on the ground.

Building off of Anderson’s narrative, it’s clear that the United States is at risk of falling into the same cycle of hubris and miscalculation that preceded the revolution. While strikes have damaged Iran’s nuclear program, they have not “obliterated” it. Rather than press an advantage or utilize the current crisis for a new round of diplomacy, the United States has disengaged. Iran, it seems, is now being treated as a settled issue, much as it was for U.S. officials prior to 1978.

Once again, the United States is losing focus at a time when Iran’s internal politics are poised to undergo major changes. Ali Khamenei, like the shah, is at the end of his reign. His passing after more than 30 years in power is likely to provoke considerable shifts among the Islamic Republic’s various feuding factions. There is even the possibility that the pressures of war, economic crisis, and government failure lead to more sweeping changes, resulting in the reform or even transformation of the Islamic Republic into an entirely different government.

To navigate these events, the United States requires dedicated professionals with on-the-ground experience. Donald Trump, who has gutted his own National Security Council and State Department, leans on the advice of a tiny group of insiders. Now, he is at risk of becoming another Carter, distracted and trying to catch up on events moving faster than the wheels of D.C. decision-making can turn.