The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower [Paperback]

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.

This really is a remarkable book well worth reading. Robert Baer is extremely insightful in Middle Eastern matters and understands not only the politics of the region but also its subtleties, inconsistencies and contradictions.

In short, the premise of this book is that US foreign policy in the Middle East has largely been one huge failure, compounded by an unwillingness to understand both the Arabs and the Persians and a botched up war from 2003 - 2009. Through the book, Baer essentially advances the argument that the United States have sided with the wrong people in the Middle East (the Sunni Arabs and Saudis) but instead should have looked to forge diplomatic relationships with Iran and its Shia'a population,.

Baer advances his arguments rationally on both a geopolitical and more personal level describing how he has interviewed members of Hizballah, the ruling elite in Iran and other countries facing the Arabian Gulf. Baer believes that the United States have won the war in Iraq, but lost the peace (as well as Southern Iraq to Iran) and that the US will lose much more unless they do something about it now. 90% of the population around the Gulf are Shia'a but held outside influence through a combination of tame democracy and dictatorship. With Iran's successful annexation of Southern Iraq, they essentially control the price of oil as well as global output levels. The recommendation is for the United States to forge a strategic alliance with Iran.

This could potentially be a very significant book and though his target audience is American, it is so clear in its conclusions that most people should read it. The book will never be serialized in Foreign Affairs as it is not academic enough in its style or presentation. There is a difference between analyzing the Middle East from a university campus office and actually working on the ground as Baer has done for most of his life.

As much as I liked this book, it also has some short comings. The book covers a huge topic area and is only 250 pages long. In other words, it is short and therefore fails to analyze some of the more subtle points. In fact, the book more or less completely implodes on itself in the last chapter, where Israel is dealt with for the first time i.e. how does the US reconcile being allied with Iran AND Israel at the same time? Baer seems to suggest that this is not a problem and would solve it with a Sykes-Picot redrawing of the regional map on the back of a packet of cigarettes. I beg to differ. The US would have to chose and as the enemy disappears with Iran AND Iran has lots of oil, I would be worried were I Israeli.

Baer's conclusion bugged me as it is too light weight for a man of his intellect and insight, but then again he is a pragmatist. Suggesting that America has backed the wrong horse for 30 years and should now back Iran is one thing. Admitting that the US de facto lost the war in Iraq is another. Getting those two messages across, whilst at the same time suggesting that the US should drop Israel in it from a huge height is probably a camel too large for most US readers to swallow.

That Iran has been the Gorilla in the Room for the last twenty years, willfully neglected and underestimated has been at the expense primarily of America. Baer who has decades of experience with the CIA in the Middle East, essentially summarises through a series of descriptions of the last two decades political ups and downs that America in backing Saudi Arabia and Israel has backed the wrong horses in the Middle East. Iran with the stability of thousands of years of High Culture, successful ruling strategies, and today of immense geostrategic interest with huge supplies of Gas, let alone oil, should be at the heart of a realignment of Western interests.
The disgust with Saudi is manifest, its links to 9.11 very clear to see. Israel is becoming a liability to American interests in the new Middle East, no longer as relevant in the post Soviet space. Iran located between Iraq, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan and Turkey has become of critical importance. Baer makes it clear the failing to grasp the post Cold War changes have cost the West dearly.
This book addresses the change of times with a Field Officers eye and needs serious analysis by those Policy Makers, who having been fed in the late 90's on Huntingtons Clash of Civilisations, now must rethink their whole approach to the Middle East. As is becoming clear- and America has a long history of ditching allies, in the face of pragmatic interests- Iran is of such importance to American interests for so many reasons, that Israel and Saudi are in serious danger of being the liability that America can no longer afford to bear.
Baer falls short of grappling with this issue in depth, but his final chapter has it quite implicit, that there is writing on the wall for Israel,and real forces for changes in the Middle East, that will significantly redefine its landscape in the coming decades.