Shenkman's borderline coup-denial ocurred during an October 11, 2007 broadcast of "The O'Reilly Factor", on FOX News channel. Host Bill O' Reilly challenged comments made by former President Jimmy Carter about Iran in a recent CNN interview with Wolf Blitzer. Furious, O'Reilly accused Carter of lying and said his comments were "absolutely dishonest and absolutely outrageous", prompting Shenkman to concur:

RICHARD SHENKMAN: Well, he's not in a particularly good position as an ex-president who had a failed policy with Iran. The problem is, not just the hostages, but he was giving real support to the Shah right up until the point where the Shah was forced out of office. And that's, in part, one of the reasons why we have had so many problems with Iran ever since.

O'REILLY: All right, well, I don't even want to get into the Shah, but let's just pick it up with President Carter failing to do anything. Do you remember Walter Cronkite every night on CBS News, Professor, going, "Day 58, Day 112" of the hostages being held in Iran? It was an embarrassment for this country. Iran was laughing at us.

And I'll submit to you that the kind of weakness President Carter showed vis-a-vis Iran lit the fuse in the beginning for the Islamist terrorist movement we have now, sir. And — and it's like Carter has amnesia. I know he's 83 years old, but come on.

Then Shenkman offered this bizarre theory:

SHENKMAN: Well, an argument has been made by some historians — Stephen Kinzer in particular wrote a wonderful book about Iran, in which he argues that, if you take a look at what happened in '79, the revolution of '79, where Khomeini comes to power, and 9/11, there is a definite line between those events, and — and that's troubling.

So much for "No spin". Simply put, the unnamed "wonderful book" Richard Shenkman is praising makes an argument contradictory to his own, and yet he presents it as a validation! All the Shah's Men was all about the folly of U.S. intervention in Iran's political affairs in the 1950's and the disastrous consequences thereafter.

By skipping over 1953, Shenkman has completely mischaracterized Kinzer's work, much of which deals critically with the theme of U.S. intervention worldwide, as anyone who is at all familiar with his reporting knows full well. He falsely claims that Kinzer made a direct connection between the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and the attacks of September 11th. 

In reality, Kinzer's actual argument in All the Shah's Men was that the 1953 coup that toppled Mossadegh helped launch a series of developments that led to an atmosphere in which 9/11 became possible. He was not suggesting that Iran had anything to do with the September 11th attack itself, but that much of the Islamic fundamentalism and democracy deficit that pervades the Middle East today has flourished as a result of the rise of the mullahs during the Iranian revolution— a revolution that never would have happened if the U.S. has not carried out the CIA coup, aka "Operation Ajax", against Dr. Mohammad Mossadegh. Kinzer's actual tag line read:

"...it is not far-fetched to draw a line from Operation Ajax, through the Shah's repressive regime and the Islamic Revolution to the fireballs that engulfed the World Trade Center in New York."  

Despite this public intellectual slander, Shenkman cannot possibly feign ignorance of Stephen Kinzer's true message. In fact, Shenkman understood Kinzer's point so clearly, that he titled his 2005 Q&A with him: "Interview with Stephen Kinzer: 1953+1979=2001 (Well, There's a Link)". In the interview, Shenkman practically obsesses over the connection between the August 1953 coup in Iran and the events of September 11, 2001. Out of 13 questions, 6 are about 9/11, and 2-3 others could be said to be oblique references to it. 

SHENKMAN: In your book you assert that a red line can be drawn from the CIA's overthrow of Mossadegh to the revolution to overthrow the Shah in 1979 to the events of September 11. How are these events connected?

KINZER: The CIA deposed Mossadegh and allowed Mohammed Reza Shah to reclaim his throne. The Shah's repressive rule lasted 25 years, finally provoking the revolution of 1978-9. That revolution brought to power a group of fundamentalist clerics who capitalized on Iran's anger at the United States for having destroyed Iranian democracy. Their regime inspired Muslim radicals around the world, including in next-door Afghanistan, where the Taliban came to power and gave sanctuary to terrorists who carried out attacks including the ones on September 11.

SHENKMAN: If the United States had not overthrown Mossadegh, do you think the history of terrorism would have turned out differently? Would we have had a 9-11 without the coup?

KINZER: The coup in Iran was hardly the only factor that led many Muslims to begin considering the United States an enemy. It did, however, represent a broader American policy of intervening in the Middle East in ways that crushed prospects for democratic development there. If Iranian democracy had been allowed to flourish, it might well have become an example to other countries in the region and led to a flowering of democracy there. Instead it produced just the opposite.

SHENKMAN: Americans generally don't know anything about the CIA coup against Mossadegh. Do you think if they did that they would understand events in the Middle East differently?

KINZER: When Iranians rose up against the Shah with cries of "Death to the American Shah!," when their new regime emerged as bitterly anti-American, and when a group of them took American diplomats hostage in 1979, many Americans wondered how this could have happened in a country they had always considered friendly. Once they understand what the United States did to Iran in 1953, they will understand why so many Iranians became angry at the United States.

What drew you to the subject of the 1953 coup? And when did you decide to do the book?

KINZER: It took half a century, and particularly the events of September 11, to make clear what an important and disastrous episode the 1953 coup was. This is a perfect example of how foreign interventions, even those that seem successful at the time, can have long-term effects that bring disaster to the intervening country.

SHENKMAN: 9-11 had a profound effect on all Americans, but it must have had a different impact on you considering the subject of your book. Do you remember thinking that you were responding differently because of your research?

KINZER: Nothing in history happens in a vacuum. There are reasons for everything, even if they are not always good reasons. Only by understanding the causes of tragedy can we hope to avoid future tragedies. I would like readers to come away from my book with a stronger understanding of one fact: that the United States cannot violently intervene in a foreign country's political process without that intervention having long-term effects that may be very harmful to American security.

SHENKMAN: President Bush said repeatedly after 9-11 that "they hate us" because they hate freedom, specifically our freedom. What did you think when you heard him making this analysis-that he was seriously misinformed (and was misinforming the American people)?

KINZER: No one in the world cares how much or how little freedom there is in the United States. What angers them is the way the United States uses its power to crush freedom in other parts of the world. In many countries, including Iran, the United States government has deposed leaders who embrace American values and replaced them with others who despise everything Americans hold dear. We subject people in those countries to regimes that we ourselves would never tolerate. We may wish to avoid this truth, but it is the root cause of anti-American feeling in the world. The United States is disliked not because of what it is, but because of what it does.

SHENKMAN: Lincoln in his second inaugural says that the Civil War was God's vengeance for slavery. We had sinned and now God was washing away the blood of our sins with the blood of civil war. Presidents don't talk that way today. Would we be better off if they did?

KINZER: Wise leaders realize that they themselves, along with their predecessors, bear some responsibility for the troubles their countries face. They do not instinctively seek to blame others. For American presidents to act as though the United States has not brought some of its present troubles upon itself by its actions in the world--actions like the 1953 coup in Iran--simply intensifies the anger that many people around the world now feel about the way Americans use their power.

Lincoln was saying that to find the root cause of discord and violent anger, we need to look in the mirror. That is as true for nations as it is for individuals.

SHENKMAN: When 9-11 took place, how far along in your book were you? Did it force you to rethink the way you were shaping the narrative?

KINZER: I had not yet begun the book when the 9/11 attacks took place. Reflecting on them and trying to understand where they had come from, however, helped lead me to this topic.

SHENKMAN: Have conservatives criticized you for linking 1953 and 1979 and 9-11?

KINZER: My book has been remarkably well received across the political spectrum. I think that's because it is not a polemic, but rather a simple retelling of facts that are unfamiliar to many people. That's why I begin it with this quote from Truman: "The only thing new in this world is the history you didn't know."

As for President Carter, his "policy" toward Iran was consistent with every successive United States administration since Eisenhower. Carter just had the misfortune of being in office during the Iranian revolution when the Shah was driven out. For Richard Shenkman to blame Carter's support for the Shah as being "one of the reasons why we have had so many problems with Iran ever since" is to overlook a quarter century of a counterproductive U.S.-Iran relationship.

Evidently, this is not the point Richard Shenkman wishes to argue. Instead he goes out of his way to implicate Jimmy Carter and wimpy liberal Democrats for the Iranian revolution, Islamic terrorism, and, by extension, the tragic events of 9/11.

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Bonus background material: Former President Carter offering his own weak rationalizations for his performance toward Iran in his October 2007 CNN interview with Wolf Blitzer:

BLITZER: You know, you have been criticized for your handling of Iran when the Shah was in power, you know, in the late...

CARTER: I have heard about that.

BLITZER: ...'70s. Looking back all of these years, knowing what has happened, what, if anything, would you have done differently?

CARTER: I would have had one more helicopter in our rescue mission, which would have brought all of the hostages out safe and free. And so I had to wait from April, around until five minutes after I was no longer president when all of the hostages did come home safe and free.

BLITZER: Because the argument is, as bad as the Shah was on human rights and other issues, he was an ally of the U.S. and probably better than the current regime and that the U.S. should have stuck with him.

CARTER: Well, we couldn't stick with him. He was not overthrown by anything the United States did. He was overthrown by his own people. And as I said earlier, after they did overthrow the Shah, we took care of the Shah as best we could and we also continued our conversations with -- our diplomatic relations with the new regime.