Don Cooke was a brand new US Foreign Service officer on his first assignment abroad when he became a hostage in November 1979. Cooke had learned Farsi and continued for a full career in the Foreign Service as one of its few Farsi-speakers.
He just retired this year. As a private citizen, he wrote a piece for The Washington Post earlier this month that lays out what he thinks is wrong with US policy toward Iran. Basically, he says that American officials simply do not understand the country they are dealing with. He says the Islamic Republic won’t compromise with the United States unless and until it thinks the Americans are ready to pounce on Iran.
“During my preparations for service in Tehran,” he wrote, “I heard a description of the Iranian style of confrontation that turned out to be more fitting than I knew at the time. Iran scholar James A. Bill called it ‘the Peacock Show.’ Two antagonists enter the field, dance and wave their feathers at each other. It becomes clear who has the more impressive feathers; the weaker one resigns the field without a fight. The biggest Peacock Show of all, one that was inevitable after the success of the Islamic revolution, is the enduring confrontation between Iran and the United States.”
Cooke says, “We are in the ring, feathers waving, with our friends and adversaries nervously looking on.”
Cooke notes that Iran has recently agreed to return to the negotiating table with the major powers, but says that is “not because it has suddenly decided to live up to its international obligations. These talks may provide a face-saving way to halt its nuclear program. The key to the Iranians accepting such a solution is to convince them that we have the capability and the will to end their program ourselves. The irony is that the more clearly we demonstrate that capability and will, the less likely we will need to use them.”
Cooke recalls being in Paris after his release and watching a television interview with deposed President Abol-Hassan Bani-Sadr. “He recounted how he had learned of the decision to release the hostages [while Bani-Sadr was still president]. He went to Khomeini to object, saying that nothing had changed, that Iran still had the advantage.
“Bani-Sadr reported that the ayatollah waved his hand and said, ‘It’s over, it’s over.’ The ayatollah has been described in many, often unflattering, ways, but he knew that the Reagan Administration was committed to end the hostage crisis by any means necessary. Khomeini was clearly a man who could count feathers.”
Cooke finished his 33-year State Department career as a senior policy adviser on Iran. The implication of his article is that he was never able to convince his superiors of the viewpoint he was advocating in his article.