The Writing on the Wall is a provocative, non-partisan, no-holds-barred account of the United States’ involvement in Iraq that deliberately depicts a worst case scenario of the consequences of a U.S. attack on Iran. Written by progressive leftist Hannes Artens, he describes his book in a post on Daily Kos.

This week, two political novels about the looming confrontation with Iran hit bookstores: Vince Flynn’s Protect and Defend and my The Writing on the Wall. For the first time in recent American literary history two political novels dealing with exactly the same subject, yet advancing two world views that couldn’t be more different, are directly competing against each other.

While next year’s presidential race between the current front runners appears to regress into a duel between moderates and ultra-Republicans pandering to the same constituency, this dispute about foreign policy and the future of “the war on terror” held on the stage of fiction truly sets research and facts based scenarios against ‘Mission Accomplished’-like pipe dreams.

And while one shouldn’t delude himself about this contest being already decided long before it begun in terms of sales figures, in bookstores, at least, customers are given the clear choice American voters are denied.

Hannes Artens is a foreign policy expert and conflict analyst who has been associated with the Atlanta-based Carter Center and a Hamburg-based academic think tank advising the German parliament on U.S. foreign policy. And a regular contributor to Daily Kos. This should be an interesting interview…

Artens believes that the situation in Iraq is only a prelude to the eventual horrors of a war with Iran. His new book offers a no-holds-barred account of the events and decisions leading up to the current conflicts and introduces readers to fictional characters based on real-life politicians, political pundits and presidential hopefuls.

Artens will tour the USA to discuss The Writing on the Wall in January. We have him tonight, straight from his home in Austria.

We get underway at 9 p.m. ET. Join us — just ring the doorbell below. We’ll be expecting you!

Click the above button at 9 to hear us live. (Hit it before then and you’ll hear the archived previous show. We get underway at 9 p.m. ET — and in case you miss it, ALL my shows are archived for your convenience.

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