Trita Parsi, Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran, and there Triumph of Diplomacy (New Haven & London: Yale U. Press, 2017):
This book is focused on geopolitics and foreign policy and more specifically, on how the leaders of Iran, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Russia, and China avoided the twin dangers of war and a nuclear-armed Iran. It's the triangular story of an intertwined geopolitical battle primarily among the United Stares, Israel, and Iran. The security interests of the United States and Israel, which never fully coincided, increasingly diverged after the 2003 Iraqi war, while the enmity of the United States and Iran was never complete either. The book seeks to document and explain how domestic and geopolitical factors--as well as luck--made diplomacy possible, and how the diplomats and negotiators made the nuclear deal achievable. It analyzes this decisions of the governments and actors involved, as well as factors that impacted the decision-making process, such as lack of information, mistrust of the other side's intentions, and domestic constraints on foreign policy maneuverability. [] This book is in many ways the third part of a trilogy, and shows not only how the United States and Iran resolved the nuclear crisis, but also how the American policy of containing Iran and establishing a Middle East order without Iran's inclusion--which is at the center of the geopolitical tensions--finally came to an end.Id. at ix-x.
Trita Parsi, A Single Roll of the Dice: Obama's Diplomacy with Iran (New Haven & London: Yale U. Press, 2012) (This book examine the diplomacy between the U.S. and Iran during the first two years of the Obama administration.
In examining the diplomacy between Washington and Tehran during this period--both the respective domestic political trials as well as challenge from Iran and America's region allies--I argue that the current statement has more to do with the domestic political limitations Obama and his Iranian counterparts face than it does with a genuine failure of diplomacy. Obama's political space on this issue was compromised from the outset of his presidency by pressures from Congress, Israel, and some of Washington's Arab allies. The Iranians, in turn, were limited by the fractures within their political elite, particularly after the fraudulent election of 2009. The Iranian government's internal and external conduct after the election, in turn, further limited the Obama administration's diplomatic maneuverability. Had greater time and space existed for diplomacy, and had the modalities and agenda of the negotiations been different, the outcome would likely have been more favorable, Contrary to the prevailing narrative, the limited diplomatic encounters between Iran and the U.S. in 2009 and 2010 can't be characterized as an exhaustion of diplomacy.Id. at ix-x.
Trira Parsi, Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States (New Haven & London: Yale U. Press, 2007): From the book jacket: "This book traces the shifting relations between Israel, Iran, and the United States from 1948 to the present, uncovering for the first time the details of secret alliances, treacherous acts, and unsavory political maneuverings that have undermined Middle East stability and disrupted U.S. foreign policy initiatives in the region."
Jay Solomon, The Iran Wars: Spy Games, Bank Battles, and the Secret Deals that Reshaped the Middle East (New York: Random House, 2017).
