Considered one of the world's foremost authorities on the Middle East, Robert Baer will explore the gap of information between what is going on in Iran and what Americans know.
Bear visited Iran to interview suicide bombers, a grand ayatollah, the hard-line chief of staff of Iran's military forces and the terrorist chief of Hezbollah.
Baer will discuss how and why Iran will control the most vital oil and gas trade routes, how it became a hero to the Palestinian Sunnis, and how it plans to seize oil from the Persian Gulf- The Commonwealth Club of California
Bio
Robert Baer
Robert Baer was a CIA case officer in the Directorate of Operations from 1976 to 1997, where he served in Middle Eastern countries, including Iraq and Lebanon. He is the author of See No Evil: The True Story of a Ground Soldier in the CIA's War on Terrorism.
Baer believes that there is evidence linking Iran to attacks on American interests, including the Khobar Towers bombing in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, that killed 19 U.S. soldiers in 1996. He says that Iran has been mishandled by U.S. diplomats since the 1980s and that American foreign policy regarding the Islamic Republic is based on myths and misinformation.
Country, Middle East, southwestern Asia. Area: 636,374 sq mi (1,648,200 sq km). Population (2009 est.): 74,196,000. Capital: Tehran. Persians constitute the largest ethnic group; other ethnic groups include Azerbaijanians, Kurds, Lurs, Bakhtyari, and Baloch. Languages: Persian (Farsi; official), numerous others. Religions: Islam (official; predominantly Shi'ite); also Zoroastrianism. Currency: rial. Iran occupies a high plateau, rising higher than 1,500 feet (460 metres) above sea level, and is surrounded largely by mountains. More than half of its surface area consists of salt deserts and other wasteland. About one-tenth of its land is arable, and another one-fourth is suitable for grazing. Iran's rich petroleum reserves account for about one-tenth of world reserves and are the basis of its economy. It is a unitary Islamic republic with one legislative house and several oversight bodies dominated by clergy. The head of state and government is the president, but supreme authority rests with the rahbar (leader), a ranking cleric. Human habitation in Iran dates to some 100,000 years ago, but recorded history began with the Elamites c. 3000 BCE. The Medes flourished from c. 728 but were overthrown in 550 by the Persians, who were in turn conquered by Alexander the Great in the 4th century BCE. The Parthians (seeParthia) created an empire that lasted from 247 BCE to 226 CE, when control passed to the Sasanian dynasty. Various Muslim dynasties ruled from the 7th century. In 1501 the Safavid dynasty was established and lasted until 1736. The Qajar dynasty ruled from 1796, but in the 19th century the country was economically controlled by the Russian and British empires. Reza Khan (seeReza Shah Pahlavi) seized power in a coup (1921). His son Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi alienated religious leaders with a program of modernization and Westernization and was overthrown in 1979; Shi'ite cleric Ruhollah Khomeini then set up an Islamic republic, and Western influence was suppressed. The destructive Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s ended in a stalemate. Since the 1990s the government has gradually moved to a more liberal conduct of state affairs.
Thank you Mr Baer for making us aware at the very beginning of your speech instead of in the footnotes at the end that everything you write is censored CIA, it spare me the waste of time of having to listen to someone who is only telling us what we already know for that is what it means to wear a gag. Why on earth would we believe anything you say if all you say is what is public knowledge anyway. Thanks again for not making me waste an hour of my life listening to the rest of your presentation.
Obama knows the advantage of knowing what's going on on the ground. His background in community activism gave him the foundation from which to build his political career. He should make Bob Baer a roving ambassador for peace in the middle east. It would force Baer to focus on a means of inciting peace vs. conflict and give Obama a ground up perception of what's going on vs. lofty idealism or hawkish "realism."
This lecturer intentionally misrepresents the facts in that main stream Muslims, like those in the US do not believe in the takfirists line of thinking. I am not being apologetic here for something elementally opposed to rules of engagement in Islam, but most extreme elements including suicide bombers and the like serve the hidden agendas of this lecturer's former bosses of which I'm sure he's well aware. What they would like is to circumvent the rising of a viable Islamic state which would unify Muslims universally and defend the interests and lives of Muslims, which is extreme according to his way of thinking. The very notion of such an occurrence is so frightening to them that it has become a crime to advocate it. He is quite aware that Shiites practice tuquiyya, i.e. a form of deception characteristic to them. But for now, they, being the historical underdogs, are the best bet for a short-termed albeit doomed policy. The Shiite dagger may very well find its mark in the backs off their co-conspirators in due time. Misrepresentation of Islam, printing phony Qurans, creating more think tanks will only digg them deeper into their hole. Just as Islam ushered the Roman empire out, so will be the fate of present day empires which are gullible enough to to take up the defunct Roman empire's banner.
yes you did loose allot in that translation. but your totally right about the Shia. They are allot more reasonable as compared to some ultra-conservative Sunni Muslim. The gates of Ishtihad never closed in Shia Islam.
member. 
