King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution: A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation is the full title of a book by Scott Anderson published in 2025. The gist of the book is that the United States, distracted by the Soviet Union and the cold war, overly compartmentalized in its state department and spy networks, did not take the religious fundamentalism that was growing in Iran seriously. Few people in the state department or even at the embassy spoke Farsi. Not many were in the smaller towns and countryside. Important warnings were ignored. Crucial reports where just filed away. While the book looks at the history of Iran and things like the 1953 coup, it mostly focuses on the leadup to the 1979 revolution. Three key sources are referenced throughout the book: Farah Pahlavi, Michael Metrinko and National Security Council officer Gary Sick. Through this lens you see clearly the catastrophic miscalculations of the U.S. that lead to the fall of shah and the Iran hostage crisis. There are some juicy moments like when President Carter visited Iran in the 1970s and brought Dizzy Gillespie and Sarah Vaughan along for entertainment. Their improvisations and informality were perplexing to the stiff Shah and gave Gary Sick insights into the monarch he was dealing with. Additionally, Michael Metrinko who was one of the hostages provides some interesting and humorous observations along the way.
“By my count I worked with nineteen different American generals over there,” Metrinko observed in the autumn of 2021, shortly after the American forces had abandoned Afghanistan to the Taliban, “but at this point I’d be very hard-pressed to tell you which one was the dumbest.”
When it gets to 1978 the book moves slowly and recounts the tense daily events leading up to the storming of the U.S Embassy and the Iran hostage crisis. The details and complexity of the situation is well-researched and conveyed. Eventually, you learn that the shah, battling cancer, leaves Tehran with his family – the shah in the cockpit of a Boeing 707, piloting the jetliner out of Iran. The book is quite the page turner and begs the question that if the state department was so incompetent then, it must be even more a disaster today. 5 stars.
NOTE: The author of this review lived in Tehran from 1970 to 1972, attended fourth and fifth grade at Iranzamin international school, and while he does not speak much Farsi, he does remember a few swear words that he learned by listening to frustrated Tehran cab drivers. The photo above is indeed from the author’s stamp collection from that era.
RELATED POST: Later, while in high school back in the United States, he questioned a United States senator about the situation in Iran. The senator seemed a bit stumped by the question. In a way, it foretold the disaster about to unfold.
I had always wondered how it was possible for the two disparate worlds to get along and how the meeting of the West with the Persian world would work out in the end. Stylish woman getting off the plane from shopping sprees in Paris, wearing the latest fashions in the same streets with Muslim women in traditional chadors. How is this possible?