Targeting Iran (City Lights Open Media) - Softcover

David Barsamian; Noam Chomsky; Ervand Abrahamian; Nahid Mozaffari

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0872864588 ISBN 13: 9780872864580

Publisher: City Lights Publishers, 2007

Synopsis

Iran and the United States are on a collision course. David Barsamian presents the perspectives of four experts on Iran who discuss the 1953 CIA coup and the rise of the Islamic regime, Iran’s internal dynamics and competing forces, relations with Iraq and Afghanistan, and the consequences of US policy.

Ervand Abrahamian authored Iran Between Two Revolutions.

Noam Chomsky’s work includes Failed States.

Nahid Mozaffari edited the The PEN Anthology of Contemporary Iranian Literature.

David Barsamian has collaborated on Imperial Ambitions with Noam Chomsky and Original Zinn with Howard Zinn.

About this title

About the Author

David Barsamian is an American radio broadcaster and writer of Armenian descent. He is the founder and director of Alternative Radio, the Boulder, Colorado-based syndicated weekly talk program heard on some 125 radio stations in various countries.

Reviews

Barsamian, founder and director of Alternative Radio and coauthor of Imperial Delusions, has produced a highly informative book that examines the U.S.-Iran standoff through interviews with Noam Chomsky, Ervand Abrahamian and Nahid Mozaffari. Topics of discussion range from the U.S.-backed 1953 coup to poetry in the years after the Islamic revolution, but the exposition of why Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad thinks Iran has the upper hand and the prospects for and likely consequences of a U.S. military strike in Iran are some of the most powerful portions of the book. "Both sides are playing brinksmanship," claims Abrahamian. One of the central conclusions is that the U.S. and Iran are teetering precipitously on the edge of another war that neither side can afford to participate in. In Barsamian's (and his interviewees') view, the best hope for a bloodless conclusion to the current standoff is for the US to approach Iran without demanding it submit to American demands before they even reach the bargaining table. This slim book is heavy with historical and cultural background that doesn't often find its way into news accounts; it's a great primer on a simmering conflict.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Edition details

• Publisher: City Lights Publishers
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0872864588
• ISBN 13: 9780872864580
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 144