Read The Twilight War The Secret History of America ThirtyYear Conflict with Iran Audible Audio Edition David Crist Peter Berkrot Inc Blackstone Audio Books

Product details Audible Audiobook Listening Length 25 hours and 22 minutes Program Type Audiobook Version Unabridged Publisher Blackstone Audio, Inc. Audible.com Release Date March 26, 2019 Whispersync for Voice Ready Language English, English ASIN B07PQXW2N7

The Twilight War The Secret History of America ThirtyYear Conflict with Iran Audible Audio Edition David Crist Peter Berkrot Inc Blackstone Audio Books Reviews

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  　　　 Ask just about anyone why the US/Iranian relationship is strained and you’ll discover a myriad of shrugs and ill informed responses. They’re terrorists, or they’re going to nuke Israel are the most common responses. Many people are aware of the instability but vary rarely can anyone tell you why. This book “The Twilight War,” by David Crist, gives an extremely thorough and well researched history of the Iranian US conflict from the revolution to today.
  　　　David Crist, is the son of CENTCOM Commander George Crist who oversaw middle eastern forces throughout the 1980’s. This gives Crist a unique and rare perspective and access to information not typically available to the average citizen. It is evident that his research was extremely vast and painstakingly detailed. My anticipation for this book was to gain insight from a completely American perspective, I was not disappointed. Crist provided a play by play of nearly every event that occurred post revolution and the perception of events from an American military standpoint. His work shed light on many different examples of Iranian instigation and disruption throughout the middle east and how those antagonisms effected the US military. Including an assassination attempt in Washington of a Saudi Ambassador.
  　　　Although Crist did not hold back in his work and offered many examples of times when America was at fault in the political antagonism, this book is indeed written from a skewed perspective. Crist began his historical account primarily at the time of the revolution and went into great detail as to what happened, but he failed in explaining why the events occurred. To truly understand the American/Iranian conflict you must have a thorough grasp on Iranian culture and history and why the revolution had as much to do about America and Europe than it did about Islam and Anti-zionism.
  　　　Although the perspective is one sided, the author reports facts accurately, descriptively, and leaves out personal bias and opinion. This did not read like a propaganda piece, but more of a dry recitation of information. If you are looking to get a detailed and honest record of the history between Iran and the US for the passed 30 years, this is a great resource. To fully understand why the Iranian and US relations are in their current state, I would encourage you to find more resources.
• I just finished reading Crist's history and was impressed, primarily at Crist's obviously earnest effort at "objectivity." He chronicles clearly the US and Iran, taking turns, one after the other, in missing opportunities for a reconciliation, with the resultant impenetrable distrust at the end of 30 years. His work, published in 2012, is not optimistic; he sees the future as most likely a transition from twilight to darkness, by which he clearly means a massively destructive war.
  
  I was surprised at the intensity of the criticism of Crist's work for supposedly shoddy sourcing, to the point of challenging endnotes. The one thing that seems clear is that Crist had extraordinary access to resources, both human and archival. The lead criticism, based on endnotes, focuses on Crist "detailed" description of the 1983 bombing of the marine barracks in Beirut, which supposedly fails to mention the doubt about the bombers' identity. But Crist's own rendition of the events at p. 135 merely describes as "likely" the man identified as the attacker; Crist's endnote expands on the uncertainty by reciting the alternative theories put forth by American intelligence reports in 1984, Hezbollah sources in 2003, and CIA sources, all of which he describes as underscoring the unclear identity of the perpetrator.
  
  Again, the criticism of Crist's discussion of Iranian penetration of Iraqi militias, is it's "complete certitude" and purported attribution to a 2008 West Point study, which the reviewer states "does not support" Crist's account. However, endnote 7 to Chap 26 at p. 620 does not, as the critic suggests, attribute the narrative to the West Point study; it merely cites the study as "an accurate and comprehensive overview of Iranians activities in Iraq." As to certitude, maybe Crist's narrative is more confident for having access to Wikileaks' 2011 release of internal US communications, obviously not available to the West Point authors at the time of their 2008 publication. After all, no one ever criticized Wikileaks for inaccuracy.
  
  Finally, if the book ended at p. 415, as suggested, we'd miss the entire George W. Bush and partial Obama era histories through 2012. They are critical to the broad narrative that Crist portrays of administrations, both Republican and Democrat, missing opportunities for reconciliation at critical moments....and the Iranians copying the errors of their American counterparts. Nothing in the endnote attacks undermines the utility of those chapters for that purpose.