Customer Reviews

The Nuclear Sphinx of Tehran: Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the State of Iran

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I'm an open minded person and will not come to a conclusion without looking from all sides of a situation. This book gives a pretty good insight into how Iran evolved to what it is today. You have plenty of references to draw from and shouldn't conclude that it's onesided since the writers are Jewish and Arab. It really makes you think and fills in the gap with information on why Iran's president is the way he is. The media makes it hard to get an understanding on this guy, but this book has given a lot of insight on how he could be. I give it 5 stars because of the well documented references so you can trace why the authors came to their conclusions.

This is an informative book which is worth reading, although the cover and title are a bit misleading and the book needs editing before the next publishing, as I assume the publisher has noticed. The front cover gives the impression that it is somehow a biography of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with an emphasis on his role in Iran's nuclear and foreign policies. Actually, it is more like two short books on different but related topics attached to one another. The first third of the book is a pre-election biography of Ahmadinejad, and the remainder is a description of Iran's nuclear program with some analysis of how to deal with it. Ahmadinejad is barely mentioned after page 72. It was like they wanted to write two books, but wanted to rush this while it was timely, so decided to cut material and combine them into one. (Most of the book will be of purely academic interest if we bomb Iran.)

One of the authors is a Israeli expert on Israeli intelligence who writes for Haaretz. The other is an Iran expert of Iranian origin (not Arab, as one of the other reviewers suggests).

The first four chapters dealing with Ahmadinejad's life are certainly good reading, as they include facts not widely known which bear on his performance as president of Iran. Ahmadinejad comes from a rural background, and through the sacrifices of his parents, he was able to attend school and become an engineer. He eventually obtained a PhD in traffic planning (don't laugh, traffic is a huge issue in Iran, especially in Tehran). His religious development included an association with the Hojjatieh society, a messianic movement within Shia Islam which is obsessed with the Mahdi and the apocalypse.

Most importantly, Ahmadinejad came under the influence of Ayatallah Muhammad Yazdi and his followers. Yazdi is the most prominent of the messianic Shia clerics, and he believes that while Muslims cannot force the return of the Mahdi and the end of the world, they can "strive to hasten it," as the authors put it. (In Islam, the Mahdi is a messianic figure, but not Jesus himself, as Jesus is believed to return after the Mahdi. Apocalyptic thinking is less prominent in Islam than Judaism or Christianity generally, but actually quite important in Shia Islam.)

The remainder of the book focuses on the twists and turns of the Iranian nuclear saga, in which ruse after lie after deception has been exposed as IAEA investigators, opposition groups and Western intelligence agencies have pressured Iran on its "peaceful" nuclear program. The authors do an excellent job at narrating this history, although little of it - other than perhaps a few comments about Mossad's role - is likely to be new to readers already familiar with the issue.

The book does need some serious editing, however. Numerous less than artful phrases remind the reader that neither of the authors is a native speaker of English. There are some punctuation errors, and a good number of sentences which would have benefited from a well-placed comma. There are also a few rather obvious grammatical errors (e.g. the first paragraph on page 195 contains the sequence "'At present, Iranian air defense appears nontrivial, but certainly not incredibly potent.' said a research study by MIT." The same paragraph suggests that bombing Iran's reactors "won't be an easy assignment... because Iran has protected them with anti-aircraft missiles that are not very advanced.").

There are also a few factual statements which I don't think are quite right. At one point, they write that the U.S. claimed Iraq had nuclear weapons (p. 111); actually, U.S. intelligence estimated that Iraq had an advanced nuclear program, not actual nuclear weapons. The U.S. was wrong on that, but the authors get the mistake wrong. I have, however, read a fair amount on Iran's nuclear program, and everything on that issue seems in order.

I recommend the book with the qualifications listed above.

This book was a wonderful price-one cent!, and shipping was only $[...]. A great deal for what I received--a fascinating book in a condition that was indistinguishable from brand new, sent much more quickly than I had expected. I will certainly look out for this seller and buy from them again. Thank you. The book itself was fascinating, not biased, able to provide me with the point of view of all parties. I will be keeping this book permanently.

This book is presented to be a biography of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the current President of Iran, and point- man of the global Jihad against the West. It does tell us much about this ambitious and hate- filled Messianic dreamer but a good share of the book provides information and insight into current Iranian reality, Ahmadinejad or not. It gives a picture of a society in which north Tehran is filled with middle - class and even luxury homes, and south Tehran a third- world village, a society in which the corruption of the Shah's people has been transcended by the even greater corruption of the Islamic imams, a society in which massive unemployment combines with inflation to make even in a time of high- priced oil, the poor , poorer.
It does this while telling the story of the rise to power of an impoverished extremely devout ironmonger's son, who presents himself as the savior of the poorer classes. It traces the questionable and sketchy war record of Ahmadinejad in the Iran- Iraq conflict. It says that there is no decisive evidence as to whether he was , as has been alleged, one of those who stormed the U.S. embassay in 1979. It explains his political maneuvering and strategy, and how he defeated for the Presidency his great rival Rafsanjani. And how to this day they are doing battle within the power- centers of the regime. Rafsanjani has a stronger position within the oil - industry, the key Iranian industry and has recently defeated a number of Ahamadinejad parliamentary initiatives on oil policy. The authors tell how Iranian Prime Minister Mohammed Khatami loves the ship-of- state , bird- in- flight analogy and how he believes it always necessary to balance one wing ( Raftsanjani) against another ( Ahmadinejad) to keep the thing going. But they do not clearly and decisively answer the question of who is the ultimate power in Iran, and how much of Iranian nuclear - policy depends on Ahmadinejad alone.
They do however make it clear how Iran has continually deceived the world- community in regard to its nuclear program. And how errors in judgment of the I.A.E.A. 's Mohammed Baradei have enabled the program to speed ahead when it might have been stopped earlier. They sketch Iran's nuclear program and leave no doubt as to the absolute determination of the Iranians to achieve nuclear weapons.
They also present the 'twelveth Mahdi theology' of Ahmadinejad in a clear way. Ahmadinejad believes there has to be global catastrophe and chaos if Iran as prelude to Iran achieving its goals of destroying Israel defeating the United States and making Islam the ruling faith of mankind.
The authors while clearly exposing Ahmadinejad's goals, do not go into detail about Western political, diplomatic and economic options for regime- change in Iran, or for deterring the Iranian nuclear power. They do not trace the consequences of what a nuclear Iran might mean for mankind, or explain in detail the Middle East nuclear- arms race which might bring the world to disaster.
In a strange way they provide much interesting factual information about Ahmadinejad , tell the basic story of his life to this point but do not provide analysis of his character in the deepest way.
Clearly there is in Ahmadinejad some strong sense of Islamic humiliation before the West, and his hatred of Israel is no doubt connected with the double humiliation of feeling Islam defeated by a small formerly dhimmi people.
I would have been happier had the authors written more about the geopolitical strategy of Iran, about the possible ways of thwarting their evil ambitions.
But on the whole this is a highly recommended work which will provide much information on the leader and the nation which now seem the best candidate for bringing mankind to its next major disaster.

This is another nefarious piece of warmongering by authors who are not only ignorant but deliberately misinforming for the purposes of war propaganda, and they have set up like-minded people to applaud their second rate book, even by NeoCon standards. According to over 2500 man hours of inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency, that is, the only body capable of making a legitimate judgement on this issue - and according to the outcome of the IAEA-Iran agreement which was finalised in January 08, there is no evidence of a weaponisation programme in Iran and all the outstanding issues - These have been issues identified by the US and Israel and used for falsely branding Iran's nuclear energy programme as a weapons programme - have been clarified and the peaceful nature of Iran's programme verified by the IAEA. Any past cladestine activity has been in relation to the bullying measures by the US not allowing Iran to proceed with its legal contracts and purchases. These too have been clarified by the IAEA. Ahmadi-Nedjad, whatever his inclinations might be - and he is not an anti-semite and has not called for the destruction of Israel - is not in charge of Iran's nuclear programme or indeed its foreign policy. This book is a cheaply written piece of war propaganda.