Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi to Baghdad, unleashed internal dynamics that culminated in a clergy-inspired uprising on 19 August. The event led to the downfall of Mosaddeq's government after the pro-shah army units joined the fray in the afternoon of that day. Bayandor dismissed as prevarication the claim by the CIA operative in Tehran Kermit Roosevelt to the effect that he had planned events of August 19 two nights earlier in a "Council of War" held at the American Embassy in Tehran. Bayandor's narrative stirred controversy in academic circles, reflected in a special edition of Iranian Studies in September 2012. The brunt of criticism was on Bayandor's affirmation of the role played by the supreme quiescent Shia leader, Grand Ayatollah Seyyed Hossein Boroujerdi, deemed by others to be above the political fray. Homa Katouzian, a historian and political scientist, dismissed Bayandor's book as "political". Academics Fouad Ajami, Yann Richards, Shahram Chubin and Michael Axworthy praised the book as a valuable contribution to the literature. The book received mixed reviews in the media. The Economist, while pointing to the polemical character of the new narrative, considered the author's skepticism, "A useful antidote to Roosevelt's self-aggrandizing, which some later writers have mimicked uncritically". The Washington Times criticized the book stating that "a careful reading of Mr. Bayandor's book, along with the CIA history and Mr. Roosevelt's memoir, shows that there is a very thin element of truth in his revisionist theory". However, when in 2017 the CIA secret files of the episode were released by the US Department of State, several documents bore out Bayandor's contentions, notably regarding Boroujerdi's active role. Among these documents was a dispatch by Roosevelt to the CIA headquarters on the very morning of Mosaddeq's overthrow on 19 August which revealed that the CIA Station in Tehran had no knowledge of the events that were about to end Mosaddeq's rule. In December 2018, Bayandor published a comprehensive history of the 1979 Revolution titled, The Shah, the Islamic Revolution and the United States, (Palgrave-Macmillan) (). Portrayed as a multifaceted historical paradox, Bayandor delved into the roots of the revolution, highlighting cultural, demographic and historical factors that along with systemic flaws in the Shah authoritarian rule allowed incongruous socio-political forces to coalesce with the radical clergy to end the millennia-old monarchy in Iran. The role played by Carter administration has been examined in several chapters based on Department of State archives