Non­fic­tion

The Secret War With Iran: The Clan­des­tine Strug­gle Against Israel and the West

Ronen Bergman
  • Review
By – January 11, 2012
Draw­ing on new­ly declas­si­fied archives, Bergman, one of Israel’s top inves­tiga­tive reporters, Although Israel once sup­port­ed Iran’s mil­i­tary efforts under the Shahs, its rela­tion­ship with Iran dra­mat­i­cal­ly changed in 1979, when the Aya­tol­lah Khome­i­ni over­threw the Shah and led the coun­try into a rad­i­cal Islam that foment­ed hatred against Israel and the West. With all the bone-chill­ing ten­sion of a good thriller, Bergman’s book reveals the behind-the-scene efforts of the Mossad and the CIA to thwart the ter­ror­ist ploys of Hezbol­lah. Although Bergman points to the fail­ures of intel­li­gence orga­ni­za­tions in Israel and the U.S. as a major rea­son for the strength­en­ing of Iran, he points out that Israel’s 2007 ghost raid on Syria’s sus­pect­ed nuclear facil­i­ties demon­strat­ed Israel’s com­mit­ment to the Begin doc­trine: The Jew­ish State will not tol­er­ate the devel­op­ment by its neigh­bors of weapons that may be used to destroy it. Gloomy and fright­en­ing, Bergman’s fast-paced study is nev­er­the­less a clar­i­on call to all the par­ties involved in the preser­va­tion of the future of Israel.
Hen­ry L. Car­ri­g­an, Jr. writes about books for Pub­lish­ers Week­ly, Library Jour­nal, Book­Page, and Fore­Word. He has writ­ten for numer­ous news­pa­pers includ­ing the Atlanta Jour­nal-Con­sti­tu­tion, The Char­lotte Observ­er, The Cleve­land Plain Deal­er, The Orlan­do Sen­tinel, The Chris­t­ian Sci­ence Mon­i­tor, and The Wash­ing­ton Post Book World.

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