I highly recommend the book The Devil We Know: Dealing with the New Iranian Superpower by Robert Baer. It turns on its head the conventional wisdom about Iran and how we should deal with it. The author spends the first two-thirds of the book showing how Iran is increasing its power and influence, in large part thanks to the very actions taken by the U.S. to contain it. The rest of the book explains why Iran might turn out to be our best strategic friend in the Middle East.
I’d like to find other experts who support the author’s ideas, but he makes a compelling argument on his own.