The Devil We Know

Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower

Robert Baer’s The Devil We Know is the most original and riveting documentary on the Middle East this decade has seen. As a former CIA agent operating deep within the bowels of the Persian Gulf, perhaps none will be as qualified to make the commentary and observations that he espouses in this timely classic-in-the-making.

Baer comes with a dire message in this book: Iran is growing to be a world superpower and America is too helpless to do anything about it.

According to the author, the invasion of Iraq by American forces in 2003 is exactly what Iran has been hoping for. With the Sunni regime in tatters and the Americans too weary of war to do anything more in the Middle East, the Shiites are poised to fill in the power vacuum in the Persian Gulf.

While Iran’s current President has been portrayed as an anti-Semitic loon by the Western media, the author argues that his erratic behaviour is a deliberate façade by the real rulers of the country- the Ayatollahs. The concept of making facades and throwing the enemy of-guard is very much a mainstay of the Shiite culture, says the author. Indeed, the West has been very much kept in the dark with regards to what is happening in Iran and how it has progressed as a military power in the Middle East thus far.

The book also comes with detailed analysis on the wealth and reach of this elusive Persian nation and how it has secured billions of dollars in arms deals with China and Russia in return for its vast arsenal of oil. History buffs will also be please with the complete chronicle of the nation from the point it emerged as a hard liner in the Islamic revolution of 1979. Iran will never be as you have seen it from Western eyes.