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Book description

In August 2002 the National Council of the Resistance in Iran (NCRI) revealed in Washington to a stunned world how advanced Iran's nuclear programme was. And in September 2009 US President Barack Obama exposed yet another clandestine nuclear site there, bringing the possibility of a nuclear arsenal ever closer. For seven fruitless years the international community has been too divided to counter this threat. Russia and China view Iran as a tool to counter US influence. US efforts to engage Iran have yielded no results. Sunni Arab governments fear Iran, but are powerless to keep it in check. And Israel, fearing that the bomb will be used against them, might decide on a pre-emptive strike, with drastic consequences for the region. Preventing Iran from building a nuclear arsenal is a European priority. But the EU is Iran's biggest commercial partner: Europe's strategic and economic interests collide. Iran: the Looming Crisis is a new and completely revised edition of Emanuele Ottolenghi's well-received Under a Mushroom Cloud (2009). Fully updated to take account of the current diplomatic stalemate, the latest developments in Iran's nuclear and ballistic missile programmes, Obama's diplomatic overtures, the re-election of President Ahmadinejad, and mounting protest within Iran against oppression, this uncompromising analysis offers a compelling answer to the dilemmas facing the West. Emanuele Ottolenghi obtained his PhD at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and taught Israel Studies at Oxford from 1999 to 2006. From 2006 to 2010 he was the director of the Brussels-based Transatlantic Institute. He is a Senior Fellow at the Washington-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies, and is a frequent commentator on Middle East affairs and transatlantic relations.