July 14, 2008
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.
September 1, 2008
Baer, the former CIA agent turned best-selling author (Sleeping with the Devil, 2003), is such a talented, clear-thinking writer that this book, which tackles a complex issue of global political import, is a genuine pleasure to read. His thesis, which is sure to elicit controversy from some sides (but also enthusiastic agreement from others), is that Iran, far from being the commonly perceived medieval throwback harboring an irrational hate for the West, is in fact an emerging superpower, a twenty-first-century country that considers itself ready to take on the West. Baer has been an observer of Iran for three decades, as a CIA operative and (more recently) as an accredited journalist, and he knows whereof he speaks. His portrait of Iran as a country full of contradictions, of Old World beliefs mixed with New World sexual mores and pop culture, will prompt a startling paradigm shift, at least for those accustomed to writing Iran off as an Islamofascist state.And his explanation that Iran isnt merely daydreaming, that it could not only wage a war against the U.S. but win, is both plausible and chilling. The U.S. had better get to know the real Iran quickly, Baer concludes, or suffer the consequences.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)