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    Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul For Saudi Crude
    Unavailable
    Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul For Saudi Crude
    Unavailable
    Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul For Saudi Crude
    Audiobook7 hours

    Sleeping with the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul For Saudi Crude

    Written by Robert Baer

    Narrated by Robertson Dean

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    "Saudi Arabia is more and more an irrational state-a place that spawns global terrorism even as it succumbs to an ancient and deeply seated isolationism, a kingdom led by a royal family that can't get out of the way of its own greed. Is this the fulcrum we want the global economy to balance on?"

    In his explosive New York Times bestseller, See No Evil, former CIA operative Robert Baer exposed how Washington politics drastically compromised the CIA's efforts to fight global terrorism. Now in his powerful new book, Sleeping with the Devil, Baer turns his attention to Saudi Arabia, revealing how our government's cynical relationship with our Middle Eastern ally and America' s dependence on Saudi oil make us increasingly vulnerable to economic disaster and put us at risk for further acts of terrorism.

    For decades, the United States and Saudi Arabia have been locked in a "harmony of interests." America counted on the Saudis for cheap oil, political stability in the Middle East, and lucrative business relationships for the United States, while providing a voracious market for the kingdom' s vast oil reserves. With money and oil flowing freely between Washington and Riyadh, the United States has felt secure in its relationship with the Saudis and the ruling Al Sa'ud family. But the rot at the core of our "friendship" with the Saudis was dramatically revealed when it became apparent that fifteen of the nineteen September 11 hijackers proved to be Saudi citizens.

    In Sleeping with the Devil, Baer documents with chilling clarity how our addiction to cheap oil and Saudi petrodollars caused us to turn a blind eye to the Al Sa'ud's culture of bribery, its abysmal human rights record, and its financial support of fundamentalist Islamic groups that have been directly linked to international acts of terror, including those against the United States. Drawing on his experience as a field operative who was on the ground in the Middle East for much of his twenty years with the agency, as well as the large network of sources he has cultivated in the region and in the U.S. intelligence community, Baer vividly portrays our decades-old relationship with the increasingly dysfunctional and corrupt Al Sa'ud family, the fierce anti-Western sentiment that is sweeping the kingdom, and the desperate link between the two. In hopes of saving its own neck, the royal family has been shoveling money as fast as it can to mosque schools that preach hatred of America and to militant fundamentalist groups-an end game just waiting to play out.

    Baer not only reveals the outrageous excesses of a Saudi royal family completely out of touch with the people of its kingdom, he also takes readers on a highly personal search for the deeper roots of modern terrorism, a journey that returns time again and again to Saudi Arabia: to the Wahhabis, the powerful Islamic sect that rules the Saudi street; to the Taliban and al Qaeda, both of which Saudi Arabia helped to underwrite; and to the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the most active and effective terrorist groups in existence, which the Al Sa'ud have sheltered and funded. The money and arms that we send to Saudi Arabia are, in effect, being used to cut our own throat, Baer writes, but America might have only itself to blame. So long as we continue to encourage the highly volatile Saudi state to bank our oil under its sand-and so long as we continue to grab at the Al Sa'ud's money-we are laying the groundwork for a potential global economic catastrophe.


    From the Hardcover edition.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateMar 5, 2003
    ISBN9780736698214
    Unavailable
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    Reviews for Sleeping with the Devil

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    • 5/5
      An essential book about Iran and the Middle East written by someone who understands the history, culture and outlook of that region from first hand experience. Robert Baer's other books, See No Evil and Sleeping With the Devil are both first rate, but this one tops this others, especially because its focus is on contemporary issues that bear directly on the United States and Iran. It should be at the top
      of Barack Obama's and Hillary Clinton's reading lists (assuming, of course, that they have reading lists!).
    • 5/5
      This book was perfect for understanding where Iran is today since its revolution in 1979. Robert Baer focused primarily on Iran’s foreign policy strategy throughout the Middle East. He argues that Iran, far from being a regime run by apocalyptic religious fundamentalists out to nuke Israel, is a shrewd and calculating political player in the region. Its ultimate goal; to make the US accept Iran as an equal power and replace America as the dominating force in the Middle East. I was astonished reading about how far Iran’s reach goes and how much weight it carries in places like Iraq and Lebanon. Baer also notes how Iran’s proxy in Lebanon, Hezbollah, has won the hearts and minds of Shias and Sunnis alike throughout the Muslim world. This book should serve as a wake up call that Iran is winning in the Middle East and the US should either find a way towards peace or start gearing up for a hundred year war in the region. Highlights: - Iran wants nuclear capability but would never create a nuclear weapon , doing so would jeopardize all the progress that it has made.- Iran plans on controlling all the oil fields in the Persian Gulf. With large Shia populations in many Gulf states this is making Arab countries more willing to acquiesce to Iran’s demands.- Baer believes that our best option with Iran is diplomacy and that in the long run a US-Iran alliance will be successful in terms of stability in Iraq, better hopes of a peace deal between Israel and Palestine, and more cooperation in containing the Taliban in Afghanistan.