The Devil We Know
Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A frighteningly prescient look at Iran’s unchecked growth as a hidden superpower, and the threat the nation will soon pose to the United States—and the world.
“The most important book on the Middle East to appear in many years”—Thomas Powers, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Intelligence Wars
As ex-CIA operative Robert Baer masterfully shows in The Devil We Know, 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.
Baer mixes on-the-ground sleuthing and interviews with key players to demonstrate that Iran, far from being a wild-eyed rogue state, is a rational actor—one skilled in the game of nations and ruthlessly effective at thwarting Western colonialism. 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. The alternative—to continue goading Iran into establishing hegemony over the Muslim world—is too chilling to contemplate.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Former CIA operative Baer (See No Evil) challenges the conventional wisdom regarding Iran in this timely and provocative analysis, arguing that Iran has already "half-won" its undeclared 30-year war with the United States and is rapidly becoming a superpower. In Baer's analysis, Iran has succeeded by using carefully vetted proxies such as Hezbollah and by appealing across the Muslim sectarian divide to Sunni Arabs, and is well on its way to establishing an empire in the Persian Gulf. Baer claims that since "Iran's dominance in the Middle East is a fait accompli," the United States has no viable choice but to ask for a truce and enter into negotiations prepared to drop sanctions against Iran and accept a partition of Iraq, which is already, and irretrievably, lost. Baer's assumptions are often questionable most tellingly that Iran is now trustworthy and his conclusions premature: he states unequivocally, for example, that "the Iranians have annexed the entire south ." But his brief adds an important perspective to a crucial international debate. (Sept.)
