Generally book reading seems to be on the decline, collateral damage in the age of short attention videos, podcasts etc. I am no exception, finding that it is all that I can do to keep up with the slew of geopolitical trends and events that characterise our current times.
However, when Professor Seyed Mohammad Marandi of the University of Tehran repeatedly encourages his western audience to read ‘Going to Tehran – Why the US must come to terms with the Islamic Republic’ (2013 – Leverett and Leverett) I, for one, eventually felt the need to find the time. Professor Marandi, with close links to the Iranian Government, appears to have taken on a Western facing role in providing an Iranian perspective on the current conflict in Western Asia – in combative debate with commentators in western mainstream media and in more considered and nuanced interviews on alternative media. He is my main ‘go to’ when trying to get a sense of what is going on in Iran and how it might be planning its next moves in its war with the US and its Israeli proxy.
