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Richard Cochrane is trained in chemistry and metallurgy but is far more interested and practiced as a political and fund raising consultant, writer and amateur historian. He grew up in a Navy family and with his two younger brothers carried on its 500+ year tradition of naval service to Great Britain and the USA then enjoyed a career with one of the largest advertising and public relations agencies working with numerous Fortune 500 companies and many of America's premier educational institutions. He maintains friendships and acquaintanceships around the world. He lives in Santa Barbara, California.

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Next President Faces Hobson’s Choice - Iran or Iran

October 6th, 2008 • Richard Cochrane

“Everything is coming to a head in the Middle East.”

No matter who is elected president in November, former CIA officer Robert Baer has no doubt about what will be topping his agenda: Iran. “Everything is coming to a head in the Middle East,” Baer tells Newsmax. “The days of messing around with Iran are over. We’ve been kicking this can down the road for 30 years, and now we’re at the end of the road.”

Iran he says, wants to be the “citadel of Islam.” He warns that Iran is probably months, if not weeks, away from war with Israel.

With Chinese Silkworm missiles pointed toward the Strait of Hormuz, Iran has the ability to cripple the world economy in a matter of minutes by shutting down the flow of oil. That’s even before it gains a nuclear missile.

Like it or not, Baer argues Iran is now a superpower with perhaps even more ability to alter America’s destiny than China or Russia. The next U. S. president will face stark choices including:

  • 1. stagger toward an eventual war with Iran or try to negotiate with a new Persian empire,
  • 2. continue to “kick the can,” let Israel handle Iran, and reap the consequences.

“The Israelis are going to tell this the next administration: ‘You guys do something or we’ve got to do it.’

“And that’s exactly what we don’t want to do: push the Israelis into a corner,” he adds. “Because they’ve got guts. We either have to have the b***s to take on Iran and knock them down a peg, or we have to have the guts to have a serious sit-down.”

He argues Iran is inspired to re-create a Persian empire throughout the Middle East and Central Asia. Iran aspires to be the center of not only Shia Islam but also all Islam, with the goal of eventually taking over the holy sites of Mecca and Medina from Saudi Arabia. That process is already pretty far along.

In Lebanon, it has created a state within a state led by the powerful Hezbollah, created by Iranian agents in the 1980s. It has made key alliances with Hamas in the Gaza Strip, has top allies in the Iraqi government, and is pressuring Saudi Arabia to share control of its holy places.

Iran has evolved from a terrorist state to a calculating Machiavellian power its motives are clear-headed and logical once its history is understood.

Iran is not homicidal maniacs like the Sunni terrorists or Osama Bin Laden. Osama bin Laden is a nihilist. The Iran has a mission, a goal. They want:

  • stable markets in oil.
  • to open up trade.
  • a big say in Iraq.
  • to stop the oppression of the Shia in Saudi Arabia.
  • implementation of (United Nations Security Council) Resolution 242,” which calls for the Israelis to pull back from the West Bank and other territories seized in the Six Day War of 1967.

Baer doesn’t take Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and his messianic, Holocaust-denying rhetoric seriously. He is largely a figurehead.  Power rests with the country’s supreme leader and a small core of religious leaders in the Council of Guardians and the Assembly of Experts. He’s like a crazy congressman on the left or the right — nobody pays much attention to him.”

Baer is not saying that U.S. differences with the new Iranian superpower are resolvable. Nor is he saying the U.S. must not push back against Iran in Iraq, Lebanon and elsewhere.

War may be inevitable but should at a time of America’s choosing, not Iran’s. “If we have to get in a war let’s make sure it’s intentional, not accidental, one that we can control,” Baer says. “But if we have to get into a war with Iran, let’s at least try to determine what the hell is going on in Tehran.”

That’s the message of Baer’s new book, “The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower.” Baer came to national prominence after he left the CIA in 1997 and wrote the New York Times bestseller “See No Evil,” detailing almost two decades of intrigue he saw firsthand while working for the agency. “See No Evil” and another Baer bestseller, “Sleeping with the Devil,” were the basis for the Oscar-winning film “Syriana.”

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