Rating:	★★★★★
Category:	Books
Genre:	Biographies & Memoirs
Author:	Robert "Bobby" Baer

The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower

Yesterday, I was listening to a "Commonwealth Club" radio presentation. The speaker's straightforward views about the Middle East politics struck me. For a first time I was hearing things such as

• "Israel has lost the the 2006 war against the Hezbollah. No buts or ifs..."[1]

• "Iran has become a formidable power in the Middle East"

...and all kinds of other "obvious to all, yet hesitant to say it loud" things.

It turned out that he was Robert "Bobby" Baer[2], a former case officer at the Central Intelligence Agency and the author of several books about his experiences in the Middle East giving an introduction to his latest book "The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower" [3]

In particular, Baer has documented his experiences in the book See No Evil [4]

I also recalled the movie "Syriana", which had received some Oscars. It turns out that its story was loosely based on Baer's memoirs "See no Evil".

The movie was incredibly impressive regarding its "insight" into the numerous and extremely intriguing facets of the Middle East conflicts. Due to its director's "zeal" to present the audience the full picture, it has become very complex, confusing and hard to follow over its full two hours of running time. Nevertheless, for motivated viewers it does provide a very complete, albeit fuzzy picture of the conflict.

Below are a few more info pointers to him and his works.

---

[1] Later, I have checked on that:

• Former defense minister Moshe Arens  said that Israel had lost "to ... 5000 Hezbollah fighters"

• Ilan Harari, the IDF's chief education officer, stated that Israel lost the war.

• IDF Major General Yiftah Ron Tal,  [sad] that the IDF failed "to win [...] the battle against Hezbollah" [and] called for Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz' resignation.

• ...

---

[2] During his twenty-year CIA career, Baer has publicly acknowledged field assignments in Madras and New Delhi, India; in Beirut, Lebanon; in Dushanbe, Tajikistan;
in Morocco, and in Salah al-Din in Kurdish northern Iraq. During the mid-1990s Baer was sent to Iraq with the mission of organizing opposition to Saddam Hussein but was recalled, and investigated by the FBI, for allegedly conspiring to assassinate the Iraqi leader.^[1][2]

While in Salah al-Din, Baer unsuccessfully urged the Clinton Administration to back an internal Iraqi attempt to overthrow Hussein (organized by a group of Sunni military officers, the Iraqi National Congress'Ahmad Chalabi, and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan's Jalal Talabani) in March 1995 with covert CIA assistance. Baer quit the Agency in 1997 and received the CIA'sCareer Intelligence Medal on March 11, 1998. Baer wrote the book See No Evil documenting his experiences while working for the Agency.

Over the years, Baer has become a strong advocate of the Agency's need to increase Human Intelligence (HUMINT) through the recruitment of agents.

In 2004, he told [to a reporter] about the way the CIA deals with terrorism suspects, "If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria. If you want someone to disappear—never to see them again—you send them to Egypt."

---

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

Former CIA operative Baer challenges the conventional wisdom regarding Iran in this timely and provocative analysis, arguing that Iran has already half-won its undeclared 30-year war with the United States and is rapidly becoming a superpower. In Baer's analysis, Iran has succeeded by using carefully vetted proxies such as Hezbollah and by appealing across the Muslim sectarian divide to Sunni Arabs, and is well on its way to establishing an empire in the Persian Gulf. Baer claims that since Iran's dominance in the Middle East is a fait accompli, the United States has no viable choice but to ask for a truce and enter into negotiations prepared to drop sanctions against Iran and accept a partition of Iraq, which is already, and irretrievably, lost. Baer's assumptions are often questionable—most tellingly that Iran is now trustworthy—and his conclusions premature: he states unequivocally, for example, that the Iranians have annexed the entire south [of Iraq]. But his brief adds an important perspective to a crucial international debate. (From Publishers Weekly)

Note: I was so surprised, because these have been almost exactly my views on the issue!
Darn! Should have joined the Company after graduation!
Either that, or, undoubtedly being super-smart, he guessed well what the current readerswant to hear.
...Once with the Company, always with the Company!

---

[4] "See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism"

is a 2003 memoir by Robert Baer, a former CIA case officer in the Directorate of Operations. Approximately the first two-thirds of the memoir focus on the various experiences of Baer's two-decade career at the CIA, while the last third depicts the obliviousness encountered in Washington.

Some focal points are

• the unsolved 1983 United States Embassy bombing in Beirut, Lebanon.
• the involvement of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in the 1983 Beirut barracks bombing (a death toll of over 300), and in other terrorist operations.
• the damage done to the CIA by the catastrophic treason of CIA agent Aldrich Ames, and the CIA's failure to identify the mole.
• his experience with oil politics in Washington and the extended reach granted to oil's agenda by the politically-fixated and strategically oblivious American government.

The film Syriana (2005) was loosely based on this book.

List of his books:

• See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism, Crown Publishing Group, January 2002, ISBN 0-609-60987-4.
• Sleeping With the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude, Crown Publishing Group, July 2003, ISBN 1-4000-5021-9.
• Blow the House Down: A Novel, Crown Publishing Group, 2006, ISBN 1-4000-9835-1.
• The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower, Crown Publishing Group, September 2008 ISBN-10: 0307408647