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WHAT:  Digging Deeper LXII: Dealing with Iran
WHO:  Led by Mark Jensen
WHEN:  Monday, November 24, 2008 -- 7:00 p.m.-8:30 p.m.
WHERE:  Mandolin Café, 3923 South 12th St., Tacoma, WA 98405

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United for Peace
of Pierce County
Study Circle:
November 24, 2008
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www.ufppc.org
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UFPPC study circle

DIGGING DEEPER LXII: Dealing with Iran

Robert Baer spent most of his 21-year career with the CIA in the Middle East, which he has called "a place wired to obscure the truth." He was a case officer in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations from 1976 to 1997, and according to ace investigative reporter Seymour Hersh of the New Yorker was “considered perhaps the best on-the-ground field officer in the Middle East,” handling agents who infiltrated Hezbollah PFLP-GC, PSF, Libyan intelligence, Fatah-Hawari, and al-Qaeda. On Nov. 24, we’ll take a look at Baer’s latest book, which Thomas Powers has called the “most important and original book on the Middle East to appear in many years”; Kirkus Reviews says it is “studded with keen insights into a nation about which America remains dangerously misinformed.” In July 2006, Digging Deeper spent two weeks on Robert Baer’s earlier books, See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA’s War on Terrorism (2002), the memoir that inspired the film “Syriana,” and Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Crude (2003).

—Robert Baer, The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower (Crown, 2008).  --  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.” —Publishers Weekly.

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Since July 2004, United for Peace of Pierce County has been conducting “Digging Deeper,” a Monday-evening book discussion group, often in the form of a study circle. Topics have included peak oil, climate change, the corporation, torture, Iran, U.S.-Iran relations, the writings of Robert Baer, Islam, American immigration policy, Barack Obama and the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr., Saul Alinsky’s life and writings, war and human nature, parallels between the U.S. and ancient Rome, the sustainability revolution, 9/11, energy geopolitics, the debt crisis, and the 2000 and 2004 U.S. presidential elections, as well as abiding themes of war, peace, politics, and social change. Occasionally, the group has spent several weeks reading longer works, like Daniel Yergin’s The Prize or Robert Fisk’s The Great War for Civilisation.

DIGGING DEEPER meets every Monday from 7:00 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. at the Mandolin Café, 3923 S. 12th St., Tacoma, WA.

Participation is free. Try King's Books (218 St. Helens Ave., Tacoma) or other local bookstores to obtain a copy. More info: contact Mark Jensen (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

****************
United for Peace
of Pierce County
Study Circle:
November 24, 2008
****************
www.ufppc.org
****************