Across the Western alliance, world leaders are again calling for renewed diplomatic engagement with Iran, convinced that Tehran will respond to reason and halt its nuclear weapons program. Yet, according to bestselling author and former U.N. Ambassador Dore Gold, Western governments already tried diplomatic talks with Iran, but Tehran repeatedly defied international pressures even to suspend its uranium enrichment efforts. While not ruling out testing Iran yet again for a carefully limited period of time, Gold warns that the West must learn the lessons of these past diplomatic failures. For if Iran simply exploits Western engagement and actually reaches a nuclear weapons capability, it will pose a significant threat beyond the Middle East that cannot be easily deterred. With Iran backing a global network of international terrorism-and even reaching into the backyard of the U.S. in South America-a nuclear Iran will embolden its surrogates and undermine the security of the U.S. and its allies. In The Rise of Nuclear Iran, Gold also shows that virtually every past U.S. administration--as well as the European Union-sought to diplomatically reach out to Tehran, but was unable to modify its hostile behavior. The Rise of Nuclear Iran also shows how:

* Western policymakers totally underestimated Iran's hostility towards the U.S. and Europe
* Iran employed strategic deception to hide its intentions from the West
* Iran intentionally played for time while completing critical aspects of its nuclear program