If you want a deeper understanding of the roots of America’s current relationship with Iran—the root causes, if you will—I highly recommend Mark Bowden’s riveting book, %%AMAZON=0802143032|Guests of the Ayatollah: The Iran Hostage Crisis: The First Battle in America’s War with Militant Islam%%.

I just finished it this afternoon, read two hundred pages because I literally couldn’t put it down. As you can probably tell from the title, it’s about the radical Islamic takeover of the US embassy in Tehran that began in November 1979 and didn’t end until 444 agonizing days later.

More than 700 pages, it’s an intricate narrative with an incredible level of detail about the hostages’ experiences, and the political climate in Khomeini’s Iran—and a deeply troubling inside look at the thinking and actions of the Carter administration and the rescue attempt that ended in disaster.