Andrew Scott Cooper

Andrew Scott Cooper, PhD, is a Non-Resident Scholar at the Middle East Institute. He specializes in US national security and petroleum policy towards the region since the Second World War, the history of modern Iran, and Middle East monarchies and kingship. He is the author of two history books and teaches as an Adjunct Professor at International Hellenic University in Thessaloniki, Greece. He has lectured widely to audiences at a variety of venues including American presidential libraries, the US State Department, and the Council on Foreign Relations. He completed a short-term sabbatical in Shi’ism at Al Mustafa Open University in Qom, Iran.

Born in New Zealand, he has a Doctor of Philosophy degree in History. He holds a MS in Journalism (Columbia University, US), MS in Strategic Studies (University of Aberdeen, UK), and a BA (Victoria University, NZ). He is the author of two books: The Oil Kings: How the US, Iran and Saudi Arabia Changed the Balance of Power in the Middle East and The Fall of Heaven: The Pahlavis and the Final Days of Imperial Iran. He is working on a third book, a study of US relations with five Middle East monarchies during the Cold War.

He is a member of the Advisory Board at Royal Holloway, University of London, Department of Politics, International Relations and Philosophy. Earlier in his career, he worked as lead researcher on landmines at the United Nations and Human Rights Watch, co-founder of the International Campaign to Ban Landmines and recipient of the 1997 Nobel Prize for Peace.

Education
B.A. (Hons.) in History at Victoria University; MS in Journalism at Columbia University; MS in Strategic Studies at University of Aberdeen; PhD in History at Victoria University.

Countries of expertise
Iran
Saudi Arabia

Issues of expertise
US-Iran relations, US national security policy in the Middle East since WWII, pre-revolutionary Iran and the 1979 revolution, Middle East oil, Middle East monarchies and kingship.

Website
www.andrewscottcooper.eu

Books

• The Oil Kings: How the US, Iran and Saudi Arabia Changed the Balance of Power in the Middle East (Simon & Schuster: New York, 2011)
• The Fall of Heaven: The Pahlavis and the Final Days of Imperial Iran (Henry Holt & Co.: New York, 2016).

Select articles

• US-Iran Relations: The Scowcroft Transcripts (The Woodrow Wilson Center)
• How Saudi Arabia Turned Its Greatest Weapon on Itself (The New York Times)
• The Shah of Iran, the Islamic Revolution and the Mystery of the Missing Imam (The New York Times)
• Declassified Diplomacy: Washington’s Hesitant Plans for a Military Coup in Pre-Revolution Iran (The Guardian)
• Why Would the Saudis Deliberately Crash the Oil Markets? (Foreign Policy)
• Showdown at Doha: The Secret Oil Deal That Helped Sink the Shah (The Middle East Journal)