Within the last thirty years, while the United States has turned either a blind or dismissive eye, Iran has emerged being a nation every bit as capable of altering America’s destiny as traditional superpowers Russia and China. Indeed, one of this book’s central quarrels is that, in a few ways, Iran’s grip on America’s upcoming is even tighter.

As ex-CIA operative Robert Baer masterfully displays, Iran has maneuvered itself in to the elite superpower rates by exploiting Us citizens’ false perceptions of about The Devil WE REALIZE: Coping with the New Iranian Superpower what Iran is-by making us believe that it is a country work by scowling religious fanatics, too preoccupied with theocratic jostling and terrorist agendas to strengthen its political and economic foundations.

The reality is a lot more frightening-and yet within the potential catastrophe can be an implicit political response that, if we’re bold enough to look at it, could avert catastrophe.

Baer’s on-the-ground sleuthing and interviews with crucial Middle East players-everyone from an Iranian ayatollah to the king of Bahrain to the top of Israel’s inner security-paint an image of the centuries-old Shia nation that’s starkly the contrary of the one normally drawn. For example, Iran’s hate-spouting President Ahmadinejad is in no way the true spokesman for Iranian foreign policy, nor is usually Iran rendering it the highest concern to become nuclear player.

Even so, Baer has found that Iran is currently involved in a soft takeover of the center East, which the proxy approach to war-making and co-option it perfected with Hezbollah in Lebanon has been exported throughout the region, that Iran right now controls a significant portion of Iraq, that it is extending its influence over Jordan and Egypt, which the Arab Emirates and various other Gulf States are being pulled into its sphere, and that it will quickly have a firm hang on the world’s oil spigot.

By combining anecdotes with info gleaned from clandestine resources, Baer superbly demonstrates that Iran, far from being a wild-eyed rogue state, is a rational actor-one skilled in the overall game of nations and so able to thwarting perceived Western colonialism that actually rival Sunnis relish fighting with each other under its banner.

For U.S. policy makers, the options have narrowed: either cede the world’s most significant energy corridors to a country that can match us militarily using its asymmetric capabilities (such as the usage of suicide bombers)-or deal with the devil we know. We might simply discover that in allying with Iran, we’ll have increased not only our own security but that of all Middle East nations.The alternative-to continue goading Iran into establishing hegemony on the Muslim world-is too chilling to contemplate.