Customer Reviews:
 Viewing Iran's rise and seismic Middle Eastern geopolitical shifts via an expert's eye! September 28, 2008
Gaurav Sharma (London, UK)
9 out of 9 found this review helpful
After having read this book I feel Robert Baer is fast acquiring the status of a pre-eminent geopolitical commentator of our times. This is his third non-fiction book and I feel it's as relevant and as brilliant as his previous two. Baer, a former CIA operative who speaks fluent Arabic and Persian and has worked in some of the most inhospitable places on earth, is indeed the real deal and here his subject is a resurgent Iran.
He draws on his experience, contacts and sleuthing to conclude that the Middle East we grew up with has already vanished in all but name. He believes that world in general and the U.S. in particular is unable to palate an unmistakable Shia Muslim ascendancy furthered by the new dominant power of the Middle East - Iran.
Baer opines that for too long, the West has looked at Iran through a prism that distorts the country beyond recognition. It is prudent to mention that via this book he is not discounting the Iranian Ayatollahs' support of terrorism, but rather that theirs is a more methodical campaign with finite aims and fixed objectives. After all, as Baer says, in the Middle East, as everywhere, there are no moral absolutes - only lesser evil.
This book charts why Iranian covert terror campaigns differ in nature from relentless, bloody and uncalculated fundamentalist Sunni campaigns. Alas, most Americans are unable to grasp basic differences between Shia and Sunni sects, let alone perverse ground realities of the Middle East and intertwining (often confusing and sometimes distorted) ideologies. Hence, the neoconservatives have succeeded over the years in embedding the thinking that most Muslims hate America and that Iran is the principal propagator of that hatred and "Islamofascism."
That's hardly a pragmatic picture, says Baer. He describes Iran as a player seeking recognition in a hegemonic high-stakes tussle. The West continues to back the wrong horse - Saudi Arabia - which is led by a corrupt royal family, is a hotbed of Sunni Islamic fundamentalism and home to 15 of the 19 hijackers who carried out the 9/11 attacks. Meanwhile, Iran has cannily spread its shadow over the entire region in the last three decades in dribs and drabs filling the void and confusion left by failed states and sheikhdoms between Egypt and Pakistan. Furthermore, U.S. and Britain destroyed a stable Iraq, the last remaining buffer against Iran, he explains.
Unabated, Iran is relentlessly pursuing its own energy interests in the region, the author warns. From a journalistic standpoint, I feel the production/projection figures cited by him are accurate and well sourced. The scenarios he projects for an energy crisis and potential points of conflict are chillingly (and worryingly) possible. The Iranians only know it too well, he suggests.
It all adds up to a stark reality - we in the West must deal with Iran, the Devil We Know. For that, Baer advocates coming to the negotiating table and being wary of a dysfunctional Saudi Arabia. The only other option - a bloody, costly and prolonged war - would be foolhardy and may achieve just the sort of "gains" we associate with the Iraq War. He says that we need to perceive Iran for what it is - a canny, modern adversary and not a country stuck in the Middle Ages full of scowling religious fanatics in turbans. This book goes someway in addressing that information gap and suggests we can work with Iran.
It is neither a pseudo-liberal rant nor a hawkish commentary on how to "take Iran out." Rather it's a wake-up call from a man who knows the region better than most. I avidly read this book from end-to-end as geopolitics and oil interest me from a personal and professional standpoint. However, I feel it is well and truly relevant for a much wider readership base and would be happy to recommend this book to anyone with an interest in current affairs.
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