(Note added Dec. 10, 8:30 pm: We actually reached our goal 39 hours before the deadline. In this update I thanked the contributors-- and explained that any additional contributions made would also be much appreciated and well used. ~HC)

Why it is important that this book be written and published, well-- and as soon as possible:

For several years now, Israel and U.S. officials and many portions of the western MSM have maintained a steady drumbeat of allegations and accusations that the government of Iran has been pursuing a secret, "military" adjunct to its (quite legal, and regularly inspected) civilian nuclear program. Currently, numerous western officials and commentators are warning that there will be a deadline in late spring or so of 2013, beyond which this alleged military nuclear program will be unstoppable. Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials have warned that military action must be taken, if necessary, to prevent this from happening. Meantime, Washington has been leading a worldwide effort to impose punishing economic sanctions on Iran, in an effort to make it give up this alleged nuclear-weapons program.

But where is the evidence that this program even exists? Veteran investigative journalist Gareth Porter has been following this issue closely for six years now. In his book, Manufactured Crisis: The Secret History of the Iranian Nuclear Scare, he will show how Israel and the George W. Bush administration successfully portrayed the various actions taken by Western nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) as responses to a long history of Iranian covert work on militarization of its nuclear program. In reality, however, the United States had intervened aggressively as early as 1983 to prevent Iran from its open effort to pursue its legitimate right to peaceful nuclear power-- and it was that aggressive U.S. intervention that pushed Iran to resort to black market transactions in order to acquire the technology needed for its civilian nuclear power program.

At the center of the book will be the story of how documents alleged to have been stolen from an Iranian nuclear weapons research program became the primary driving force in building a consensus that Iran did have such a covert program. But it will detail the multiple indications that the documents were fraudulent, based on a series of contradictions between material in the documents themselves and well-established facts. (If this sounds eerily similar to what happened during the build-up to the U.S. invasion of Iraq-- well, perhaps there's a reason?)

Manufactured Crisis will reveal, on the basis of interviews with Iranian and former IAEA officials, how the IAEA has been manipulated to put out reports suggesting that Iran had such a covert weapons program-- based overwhelmingly on documents that originated in Israel. It will also document the fact that U.S. intelligence on the Iranian nuclear program has been systematically distorted by political hostility toward Iran as well as by the structure of CIA assessments on the subject...

About Gareth Porter:

Gareth Porter was the 2012 winner of the Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism, which is awarded annually by the Frontline Club in London. His book on the origins of the U.S. war in Vietnam, published by the University of California Press in 2005, was described by historian Andrew Bacevich as "without a doubt, the most important contribution to the history of U.S. national security policy to appear in the past decade."

Since 2006, Gareth has been digging into the allegations made by the United States and Israel about Iran's nuclear program, publishing articles along the way with Al-Jazeera English, The Nation, Inter-Press Service, Huffington Post, and numerous other outlets worldwide. Over these six years, he has interviewed key actors in the Iranian nuclear conflict, analyzed the evidence, and debunked central elements of the campaign of disinformation that he shows to be at the heart of the "Iranian Nuclear Scare".

About Just World Books:

My company, Just World Books, is delighted to work with Gareth to undertake the speedy writing and publication of Manufactured Crisis: The Secret History of the Iranian Nuclear Scare, which will pull together the results of all his investigations for the first time, between two covers (and also, into a Kindle-compatible e-book.)

When I founded JWB in early 2010, I did so with the clear goal of publishing books relevant to crucial issues in international affairs, and doing so in a way that holds to excellent standards of editing and production while also being  very timely. JWB's track record shows that we have been meeting that goal. Among the 12 titles we've published to date have been the following:

** In 2010, we published Laila El-Haddad's Gaza Mom: Palestine, Politics, Parenting, and Everything In Between:

** In 2011, we published Rami Zurayk's Food, Farming, and Freedom: Sowing the Arab Spring:

** And earlier this year, we published Israeli writer Miko Peled's memoir of how he became a transformational peace activist, The General's Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine:

(Check out our whole list of titles, here.)

In working with Gareth Porter to get Manufactured Crisis written and published in a timely way we are building on that track record. Over the company's time in existence, all of us at JWB have also learned a lot about promoting and distributing our titles in a way that maximizes the possibilities of 21st-century technologies and social-marketing mechanisms.

Please support this important project!

This project could not come at a more timely point. In late summer 2012, the tensions around the allegations that Iran was pursuing a nuclear-weapons program mounted to new heights. 2013 could be a year in which the spotlight shifts to negotiations-- or, to renewed tensions. Meantime, the people of Iran continue to suffer the increasingly harsh bite of the sanctions.

The publics of the United States and other concerned states sorely need to penetrate the fog of propaganda and understand the real history of the Iran nuclear issue over the past three decades. By Fall 2013, we will have Gareth Porter's deeply researched book, Manufactured Crisis: The Secret History of the Iranian Nuclear Nuclear Scare in your hands, and ready for you to share with friends.

We appreciate your support for this timely and hard-hitting project.

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New! You can now download files for handy fliers about this fundraiser, that you can print at home and give to your friends and colleagues! Our handy downloadable PDF to make your own fliers is here. Plus of course, you can send your friends the URL for this fundraising page by email, or via Twitter, Facebook, or other social media. Here is a short-form version of it: bit.ly/ManufCrisis.