The Iranian Time Bomb: The Mullah Zealots’ Quest for Destruction,

Iran has now taken its rightful place at the center of our debate on the war. Hardly a day goes by without new revelations about Iran’s penetration of Iraq either by supplying weapons, money, guidance, and intelligence to both Sunni and Shiite terrorists, or, in some cases, sending soldiers from the Quds Force--an elite unit within Iran’s Revolutionary Guard--to confront American and Iraqi forces. And in the background we hear the leitmotif of the Iranian nuclear program, which continues apace despite international sanctions and negotiations.

An intensified debate has resulted: Is our current strategy adequate? Should we be more vigorous in confronting the Islamic Republic or should we--as under secretary of state for political affairs R. Nicholas Burns has recently argued--continue to use diplomacy as the primary component of our Iran policy? If we decide to take more active measures, what should they be?

In his latest book, The Iranian Time Bomb: The Mullah Zealots' Quest for Destruction

(St. Martin’s Press, September 2007), AEI Freedom Scholar Michael A. Ledeen reviews the history of Iran’s long-standing war against the West and discusses American policy toward Iran from the fall of the shah to the present. He analyzes the Iranian regime’s treatment of its own citizens, presents a detailed assessment of the mullahs’ vision of the future, and proposes an effective strategy for thwarting their global ambitions.

The first salvo was the attack on the American Embassy in Tehran in the fall of 1979, leading to the seizure of American hostages, a crisis that lasted 444 days. The war continued with the assassination of American diplomats and military personnel in Europe and North Africa. The latest fronts in that war are in Afghanistan, Palestine, Lebanon and Iraq. Iran arms, funds, trains, and directs a variety of terror groups, numbering tens of thousands of terrorists, regardless of their religious or ethnic makeup.

It is a mistake to believe that Iranian mullah leaders think like those of traditional nation states. They are religious zealots. They openly welcome the end of the world, which would usher in the millennium, under the sway of the long-vanished 12th Imam. They say they intend to precipitate the millennium by using atomic bombs on Israel. That is a chiliastic vision that embraces the murder of millions of us.

The Iranian Time Bomb suggests that it's time for us to hold firm. It includes a final chapter that was written close to publication.

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"Michael A. Ledeen has written a knowing book about Iran's ways. His is a book that lays bare the cruelties of the radical theocracy and its ambitions beyond its borders. After Ledeen's book, the illusions about Iran should finally be put to rest. A smart and unsentimental work."