Robert Baer
Khamenei On The Ropes?
Robert Baer served in the CIA as a field operative from 1976 to 1997. His latest book is The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower (Crown Publishers, 2008). In Iran nothing is ever as it seems, including presidential elections. It's arguable that Friday's election had less to do with a vote for or against Ahmadinejad than it did with a vote for or against Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. And if the elections were stolen, it was likely in an effort to maintain Khamenei's hold on power rather than Ahmadinejad's. Iran is not a theocracy.
The Operator
On May 28, George Tenet delivered for the Bush administration. Nearly two months had passed since the fall of Baghdad. U.S. forces had turned up no weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq, raising the specter of gross misjudgment on the part of the U.S. intelligence community and allegations of presidential dishonesty. But, that day, the CIA announced that two trailers found in northern Iraq the previous month were actually mobile biological-agent production facilities.
