Book excerpt: Inspired by hate and surrounded by fundamentalist leaders in a country that may soon possess nuclear weapons, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad poses the most serious threat to world peace, even while he shrewdly manipulates public opinion at home. Until now, Americans have known little about him. Since his election in June 2005, Ahmadinejad has accelerated his country's nuclear research; called for the elimination of Israel; and failed the Iranian people, who elected him on a since-neglected domestic platform. In this first book about him, we see the forces that are bringing the world to the brink of another war in the Middle East. Written by an Iranian-born insider and a world-renowned intelligence expert, it offers the first full portrait of this former mayor of Tehran whose rural roots and vituperative populism catapulted him from obscurity to national leadership.