Whatever else he is remembered for, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is unlikely to go down in history as an economic wizard. Indeed, the Iranian president has worn his contempt for economic orthodoxy as a badge of honour. The late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, leader of Iran's Islamic Revolution, was famously quoted as saying, "Economics is for donkeys." It is a maxim Ahmadinejad has mirrored assiduously, saying once that he prayed to the Almighty [...]

It could have been a scene straight from John le Carre's Little Drummer Girl, or perhaps Operation Shylock, Philip Roth's biting satire on how paranoia lives, breathes and prospers in the state of Israel. In a tiny, brightly lit room, a hard-nosed Shin Bet agent is questioning an archetypal innocent abroad.

Yet this was no work of fiction. This was me, in a claustrophobic room, under harsh lights, sitting across [...]