Download The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower AudioBook Free
Within the last thirty years, as the United States has turned either a blind or dismissive eye, Iran has surfaced as a nation every bit as capable of altering America’s destiny as traditional superpowers Russia and China. Indeed, one of the publication’s central arguments is that, in some ways, Iran’s grasp on America’s future is even tighter.
As former mate–CIA operative Robert Baer masterfully shows, Iran has maneuvered itself in to the elite superpower rates by exploiting People in the usa’ incorrect perceptions of what Iran is—by allowing us believe it is a country run by scowling spiritual fanatics, too preoccupied with theocratic jostling and terrorist agendas to strengthen its politics and economical foundations.
The the truth is much more scary—and yet contained in the potential catastrophe is an implicit politics response that, if we’re vivid enough to adopt it, could avert disaster.
Baer’s on-the-ground sleuthing and interviews with key Midsection East players—everyone from an Iranian ayatollah to the king of Bahrain to the top of Israel’s inner security—paint a picture of the centuries-old Shia nation that is starkly the contrary of the main one normally drawn. For example, Iran’s hate-spouting Leader Ahmadinejad is in no way the real spokesman for Iranian international policy, nor is Iran making it the highest concern to become a nuclear player.
Even so, Baer has found out that Iran happens to be employed in a smooth takeover of the center East, that the proxy approach to war-making and co-option it perfected with Hezbollah in Lebanon has been exported throughout the region, that Iran now regulates a significant part of Iraq, that it's extending its impact over Jordan and Egypt, that the Arab Emirates and other Gulf Claims are being drawn into its sphere, and this it will quickly have a firm hang on the world’s oil spigot.
By blending anecdotes with information gleaned from clandestine sources, Baer superbly shows that Iran, far from being a wild-eyed rogue state, is a logical acting professional—one skilled in the game of nations therefore effective at thwarting perceived Western colonialism that even rival Sunnis relish struggling 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 features (such as the utilization of suicide bombers)—or package with the devil we realize. We might just discover that in allying with Iran, we’ll have increased not just our own security but that of all Middle East countries.The alternate—to continue goading Iran into establishing hegemony on the Muslim world—is too chilling to contemplate.
From the Hardcover model.
