In this book Robertson shows that in a few years a weapon of monstrous destructive capability may be in the hands of a regime run by international criminals: Iran’s Supreme Leader and many of its ruling mullahs are guilty of massacring defenceless prisoners, as well as torturing and murdering protestors. The mullahs want the bomb to secure their merciless rule at home and their influence abroad, and in the process they may provoke a scramble for nuclear weapons throughout the region, if not the world. Sanctions only increase their resolve and Shia negotiators repeatedly outfox Western diplomats. A strike by Israel, which hypocritically hides its own nuclear arsenal, would be irresponsible and unlawful. But, Robertson argues, acquiring the bomb is contrary to an international law of human rights, which has been developing in recent years to put the likes of Pinochet, Miloševic and Charles Taylor on trial. Thus there may be a way out of the mess that international politicians and diplomats have made with their silence on Iran’s crimes against its own people. And the hypothetical mushroom cloud might yet have a silver lining, if it forces the world to assert the rule of law over a weapon with the potential to destroy us all.

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