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Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower
Crown
October 2008
On Sale: September 30, 2008
288 pages ISBN: 0307408647 EAN: 9780307408648 Hardcover
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Non-Fiction
Over the past thirty years, while the United States has
turned either a blind or dismissive eye, Iran has emerged
as a nation every bit as capable of altering America’s
destiny as traditional superpowers Russia and China.
Indeed, one of this book’s central arguments is that, in
some ways, Iran’s grip on America’s future is even tighter. As ex–CIA operative Robert Baer masterfully shows, Iran has
maneuvered itself into the elite superpower ranks by
exploiting Americans’ false perceptions of what Iran is—by
letting us believe it is a country run by scowling
religious fanatics, too preoccupied with theocratic
jostling and terrorist agendas to strengthen its political
and economic foundations. The reality is much more frightening—and yet contained in
the potential catastrophe is an implicit political response
that, if we’re bold enough to adopt it, could avert
disaster. Baer’s on-the-ground sleuthing and interviews with key
Middle East players—everyone from an Iranian ayatollah to
the king of Bahrain to the head of Israel’s internal
security—paint a picture of the centuries-old Shia nation
that is starkly the opposite of the one normally drawn. For
example, Iran’s hate-spouting President Ahmadinejad is by
no means the true spokesman for Iranian foreign policy, nor
is Iran making it the highest priority to become a nuclear
player. Even so, Baer has discovered that Iran is currently engaged
in a soft takeover of the Middle East, that the proxy
method of war-making and co-option it perfected with
Hezbollah in Lebanon is being exported throughout the
region, that Iran now controls a significant portion of
Iraq, that it is extending its influence over Jordan and
Egypt, that the Arab Emirates and other Gulf States are
being pulled into its sphere, and that it will shortly have
a firm hold on the world’s oil spigot. By mixing anecdotes with information gleaned from
clandestine sources, Baer superbly demonstrates that Iran,
far from being a wild-eyed rogue state, is a rational actor—
one skilled in the game of nations and so effective at
thwarting perceived Western colonialism that even rival
Sunnis relish fighting under its banner. For U.S. policy makers, the choices have narrowed: either
cede the world’s most important energy corridors to a
nation that can match us militarily with its asymmetric
capabilities (which include the use of suicide bombers)—or
deal with the devil we know. We might just find that in
allying with Iran, we’ll have increased not just our own
security but that of all Middle East nations.The
alternative—to continue goading Iran into establishing
hegemony over the Muslim world—is too chilling to
contemplate.
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