You're listening to the CyberWireriefing from the International Spy Museum.

I'm Mark Stout, the Museum's historian.

Here at the museum we get the most interesting authors including journalists, scholars,

former spies, and intelligence officers coming in to speak with our visitors

and answer questions about their latest works dealing with espionage, intelligence, and other national

security issues.

Please join me in listening to another of our selected hour-long author debriefings.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the International Spy Museum.

My name is Mark Stout, for those of you I haven't had the pleasure of meeting. I'm the historian here and today we're very fortunate to have with us Dr David Christ who is the author of The Twilight War

The Secret History of America's 30-year conflict with Iran, which is just out, I believe, two weeks ago from the Penguin Press.

Dr. Chris received his bachelor's degree from the University of Virginia and went on to get a doctorate in Middle Eastern history from Florida State and he is currently a senior historian with the Federal Government and is also an officer in the U.S. Marine Corps reserve.

He has served in the past as an intelligence officer with the Marines and he saw firsthand the war

organist Al Qaeda and also the confrontation with Iran. I don't know if we'll get

any personal stories or not today, but those might be worth asking at the signing afterwards.

He did serve in the first Gulf War and spent two tours with Special Operations Forces both in Afghanistan and Iraq.

He was in fact part of the very first U.S. military forces inside Afghanistan and in 2003 he actually personally witnessed some of the

confrontations between American and Iranian forces off the Iraqi coast in

a very tense incident, one of the tenses incidents between the two countries in many, many years.

He's a Middle East scholar, a recognized expert on Iran in particular and defense issues, frequently advises senior government officials in general, and particularly in the U.S. military,

including several commanders of the United States Central Command, the command that encompasses such

garden spots and hot spots as Iran, Iraq, the Persian Gulf or the

Arabian Gulf as the US government likes to call it. I think that's actually an

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