One of the legacies of the Bush years has been the creation in the United States of an image of Iran as a monster, a dangerous rogue state that sponsors world terror and is bent on acquiring nuclear weapons with which to attack Israel. The image is encouraged by disgruntled Iranian expatriates who promote their personal interests by peddling out-of-date ‘expertise’ to grateful think-tanks along the Washington beltway. As Robert Baer observes in The Devil We Know, Americans tend to see the turban and not the brain. His book is a timely corrective. Drawing on his years as a senior CIA operative in the Middle East, he begins it with some little known facts.
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