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WW III, Oops, A Prequel
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Is Iran or U.S. the aggressor?
A.G. NOORANI
| The Teheran Declaration brokered by Brazil and Turkey came to naught because Obama was not prepared for the reconciliation. |
This book, published on January 24, could not have made a more timely appearance. It should provoke thought on how an educated lay person can grasp the truth behind today’s news reports. Events occur against a background. Not many columnists care to describe it. Most prefer instant comment, preferably on the idiot box with its loud-mouthed, ignorant anchors and equally talented panelists. Why does not any student from our colleges of journalism do a study of the insane contest among TV channels on who is to sink lowest in arousing chauvinistic emotions in the attempt to grab TRPs?
The Hindu published on January 22 President Barack Obama’s letter to Iran’s officials, through three different channels, during the crisis over the Strait of Hormuz. Iran’s Foreign Minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, replied publicly on January 19 that “America has to make clear that it has good intentions and should express that it is ready for talks without conditions”.
Iran has threatened to close the strait if the United States and its allies were to choke its oil exports. Salehi remarked: “Out in the open they show their muscles but behind the curtains they plead to us to sit down and talk. America has to pursue a safe and honest strategy so we can get the notion that America this time is serious and ready.”
On December 31, 2011, Obama signed into law extra measures to punish Iran, which has been under sanctions for over 30 years, whereupon Iran reacted with the threat to close the Strait of Hormuz.
On November 12 last year, a huge explosion destroyed a major missile-testing site near Teheran and killed General Hassan Tehrani Moghaddam, the head of Iran’s missile programme. The U.S. and its partner Israel welcomed it as “a major setback for Iran’s most advanced long-range programme”. It entailed not only damage to property but also loss of expertise. That Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei attended General Moghaddam’s funeral showed how central his work was to Iran’s endeavours.
The truth emerged in an article by Roger Cohen, a columnist in The New York Times. There is a new Obama Doctrine, conceived in private, executed in secrecy unlike the doctrines his predecessors publicly propounded in the past. He wrote: “The Obama administration has a doctrine. It’s called the doctrine of silence. A radical shift from President Bush’s war on terror, it has never been set out to the American people. There has seldom been so big a change in approach to U.S. strategic policy with so little explanation. I approve of the shift even as it makes me uneasy. One day, I suspect, there may be payback for this policy and this silence. President Obama has gone undercover.”
Cohen referred to the blast that killed General Moghaddam and added: “Nuclear scientists have perished in the streets of Teheran. The Stuxnet computer worm has wreaked havoc with the Iranian nuclear facilities. It would take tremendous naivete to believe these events are not the result of a covert American-Israeli drive to sabotage Iran’s efforts to develop a military nuclear capacity. An intense, well-funded cyber war against Teheran is ongoing. Simmering Pakistani anger over a wave of drone attacks authorised by Obama has erupted into outright rage with the death of at least 25 Pakistani soldiers in a NATO [North Atlantic Treaty Organisation] attack on two military outposts near the Afghan border. The Pakistani government has ordered the Central Intelligence Agency to end drone operations it runs from a base in western Pakistan within 15 days. Drone attacks have become the coin of Obama’s realm.”
He noted “the strategic volte face is clear”. It is a kind of “Likudisation” of American policy: assassinate the offender, Israeli style. It is “a new doctrine that has replaced fighting terror with killing terrorists”; that is, by recourse to terrorism. Hence, the presidential silence “on a doctrine which cannot be owned in public”.
The blasts near Teheran and the killings of scientists could not have been organised without help from the Mujahedin-e-Khalq Organisation (MKO). Though it is on the State Department’s list of terrorist organisations, it has enjoyed the support of influential members of the American establishment. In May 2003, ABC News reported that the Pentagon was calling for the overthrow of Iran’s government by “using all available points of pressure… including backing armed Iranian dissidents and employing the services of the Mujahedin-e-Khalq”.
Iran for talks
Iran, therefore, demands a “comprehensive” dialogue with the U.S. – that is, not one confined to its nuclear programme. It has good reason for the distrust. It has faced a series of betrayals since the 1953 coup in which President Mohammad Mosaddeq was ousted and the Shah of Iran restored to the throne to serve the interests of the U.S. and Britain. The betrayals mounted since 9/11. Contrary to the common impression it is Iran which has sought a dialogue and the U.S. which has spurned it, preferring use of force, specifically sanctions and subversion. Therein lies the need to study carefully the background to today’s news.
Alain Gresh reported in Le Monde Diplomatique of May 2007 that U.S. commandos have operated inside Iran since 2004. “To create the conditions for military intervention, it constantly brandishes ‘the nuclear threat’. Year after year U.S. administrations have produced alarmist reports, always proved wrong. In January 1995 the Director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency said Iran could have the bomb by 2003, while the U.S. Defence Secretary, William Perry, predicted it would have the bomb by 2000. These forecasts were repeated by Israel’s Shimon Peres a year later.” Prof. Nicholas Burns at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government noted: “We have not had a serious and sustained negotiation with the Iranian government in more than 30 years” ( International Herald Tribune, January 21, 2012).
This book establishes to the hilt that just when Turkey and Brazil’s mediation was about to succeed, the U.S. backed off and preferred sanctions to diplomacy. This brings us to the question: How is the interested layman to know the truth? How many newspapers and periodicals can he read? The problem is aggravated when the state stoops to disinformation on sensitive issues, particularly on Kashmir and the boundary dispute with China. On Iran most in our media accept the American version.
Books like this can help a lot; sadly they are all too rare on the sensitive issues, on which we have mostly chauvinistic apologetics. Trita Parsi is president of the National Iranian American Council and a former public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars. In 2010 he received the Grawemeyer award for Ideas Improving World Order, and he is frequently consulted by Western and Asian governments on foreign policy matters. He is author of Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the U.S. (reviewed by this writer in Frontline, March 20, 2008).
He explains: “This book is focussed on foreign policy and, more specifically, on how the Obama administration handled the many challenges of diplomacy with Iran. It seeks first and foremost to document the events as they occurred. Second, the book aims to explain why talks did not bring about the desired results and why the pursuit of diplomacy ended up being so short-lived. It analyses the decisions of the two governments and the reasoning behind those decisions, as well as other factors that either distort or in other ways impact the decision-making process, such as lack of information, mistrust of the other side’s intentions, and domestic constraints on the governments’ foreign policy manoeuvrability.
“The book is predominantly based on primary sources, that is, interviews with decision makers from the U.S., the E.U., and Iran, as well as with other key players such as Russia, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Brazil, and Turkey. This includes interviews with both top government officials as well as the actual negotiations. Other primary sources used are confidential state documents of the parties involved that either were made public through WikiLeaks or were shared with me by government officials. Secondary sources, such as the writings of other analysts and news items, have also been utilised. As well as reports in Iranian newspapers in Persian.”
Astonishing proposals
It begins appropriately with a recall of Sweden’s Ambassador to Iran Tim Guldiman’s visit to Washington in May 2003 carrying Iran’s far-reaching proposals whose very range testified to sincerity. “The proposal astonished the Americans. The Iranians put all their cards on the table, declaring what they sought from Washington and what they were willing to give in return. In a dialogue of ‘mutual respect’, the Iranians offered to end their support for Hamas and Islamic Jehad, and pressure them to cease attacks on Israel. On Hizbollah, the pro-Iranian Shiite group in Lebanon that Iran had helped to create, Teheran offered to support its disarmament and transform it into a purely political party. The Iranians offered to put their contested nuclear programme under intrusive international inspections in order to alleviate any fears of weaponisation. Teheran would also sign the Additional Protocol to the Non-Proliferation Treaty and even allow extensive American involvement in the programme as a further guarantee and goodwill gesture. On terrorism, Teheran offered full cooperation against all terrorist organisations – above all, Al Qaeda. Additionally, Iran would work actively with the United States to support political stabilisation and the establishment of a non-sectarian government in Iraq.
“What probably astonished the Americans the most was Iran’s offer to accept the Beirut Declaration of the Arab League – that is, the Saudi peace plan from March 2002, in which the Arab states proffered collective peace with Israel, recognising and normalising relations with the Jewish state. In return, Israel would agree to a withdrawal from all occupied territories and accept a fully independent Palestinian state, an equal division of Jerusalem, and an equitable resolution of the Palestinian refugee problem. Through this step, Iran would formally recognise the Two-State solution and consider itself at peace with Israel.”
The overture was rejected and the Ambassador insulted for his pains. Iran is a key player in the region, especially on Iraq and Afghanistan. Saudi Arabia has its own private feud with Iran. Its King exhorted the U.S. to attack Iran: “Cut off the head of the snake.” Israel is another adversary.
The author holds: “Although Israel believes that the only way to stop Iran is through the threat or use of force, Israel itself lacks the military ability to destroy the Iranian nuclear programme. ‘To our regret, there is no Israeli military capability that would enable us to reach a situation whereby Iran’s nuclear capabilities are destroyed without the possibility of recovery,’ former National Security Council Chairman Giora Eiland warned in December 2008. ‘The maximal achievement that Israel can accomplish is to disrupt and suspend Iran’s nuclear programme,’ he said, adding that Israel ‘cannot defeat Iran’. In an even more blunt admission contradicting Israel’s many warnings that it will attack Iran unless it stops its nuclear programme, outgoing Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz in October 2008, ‘What we can do with the Palestinians, the Syrians and the Lebanese, we cannot do with the Iranians…. The assumption that if America and Russia and China and Britain and Germany do not know how to deal with the Iranians, we, the Israelis, know – that we will take action – is an example of the loss of proportion. Let’s be more modest, and act within the bounds of our realistic capabilities.’”
The U.S. seeks tactical engagement; Iran seeks a strategic one. It helped the U.S. after 9/11 on Afghanistan; both on the Northern Alliance and at the Bonn Conference where its decisive intervention helped to clinch an accord. The very next month George W. Bush cited it among the “axis of evil” along with Iraq and North Korea.
Dual-track strategy
Obama differs from Bush and yet is strikingly similar to him. Unlike Bush he did reach out to Iran; like him he prefers force (sanctions) to diplomacy. He is hamstrung by a Congress that is ardently pro-Israel. He initiated a policy review soon after he took office in January 2009. It was led by the envoy Dennis Ross, who is notoriously Pro-Israel, and Puneet Talwar, a senior director at the National Security Council. “There were no softies on Iran,” an official noted. The Ross-Talwar paper was ready in April.
“The review produced a policy eerily similar to the hybrid approach presented by Ross months earlier; a strategy of simultaneously offering Teheran engagement without preconditions while ratcheting up sanctions in case Iran did not yield to American demands. The State Department called it the dual-track strategy – the idea that the diplomacy and sanctions tracks went hand in hand, and could be effective only when pursued jointly. The long-standing American precondition that Iran suspend enrichment before any negotiations could begin was dropped….”
On the specifics of the diplomatic strategy, it stipulated that diplomacy with Iran would be centred on the nuclear issue. Many officials recognised that significant common interests existed between the U.S. and Iran in Afghanistan, and that diplomacy might get off to a better start if these common interests were addressed early on. Both Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer publicly stressed the importance of Iranian involvement in resolving the conflict in Afghanistan, and they said the U.S. and the Islamic Republic shared mutual interests that could offer possibilities for cooperation. “We need a discussion that brings in all the relevant players: Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, China, Russia – and yes, Iran,” said de Hoop Scheffer.
THE STRAIT OF Hormuz as seen from the International Space Station in this September 2003 image from NASA. Iran has threatened to close the Strait if the United States and its allies were to choke its oil exports.
Among the allies, France emerged as the hardliner. It rejected Iran’s right to enrich uranium. The former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, who advised Obama during the presidential elections, expressed sharp criticism of many aspects of the policy in his testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in March 2009. He argued against preconditions and timelines for the negotiations; threats of sanctions; mentions of the use of force or regime change; or accusations of terrorism. “It seems to me that we run the risk of… wanting to have our cake and eating it too at the same time, of engaging in polemics and diatribes with the Iranians while at the same time engaging seemingly in a negotiating process,” he told the Committee. “The first is not conducive to the second.”
Opinion in Iran was divided between advocates and opponents of engagement with the U.S. Some insisted on two preconditions – release of Iran’s assets and lifting of sanctions. Controversy over the June 2009 general elections did not help; neither did President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s abrasive rhetoric.
Enrichment concerns
On Iran’s nuclear programme, a critical factor was Iran’s growing stockpile of low-enriched uranium (LEU). If the LEU is re-enriched to a level of 85 per cent or more (from 3.5 percent at the LEU level), it may be converted into high-enriched uranium (HEU) that can be used to build a nuclear warhead. A simple nuclear warhead can be manufactured from approximately 25-50 kilograms of HEU, requiring the re-enrichment of approximately 1,300 kg of LEU. By the summer of 2009, Iran had amassed more than 1,500 kg of LEU.
“Finding a way to get the LEU out of Iran was an important immediate objective of the Obama administration. The further away Iran was from a breakout capability – that is, the technical point at which Iran would have all essential components needed to build a nuclear weapon – the more time there would be for diplomacy.”
The U.S. sought out Russia as a partner, thinking that once Russia was on board, China would follow suit. Eventually on October 1, 2009, officials from Iran, the P5 of the Security Council plus Germany and the E.U. met in Geneva. The U.S. focussed on the nuclear question; Iran, on other matters. “These conversations lacked sincerity of purpose,” Parsi writes and describes exactly how they went.
The second round was held under the auspices of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna on October 19, 2009. The “swap” proposal was on the table. The U.S. proposed that 1,200 kg of Iranian LEU would be shipped to Russia for reprocessing and then sent to a third country to turn it into fuel pads, after which the fuel would be sent to Iran for the Teheran Research Reactor. In principle, the Iranians agreed to the concept and were open to discussing it in greater detail. Iran rightly demanded a guarantee that the fuel pads would be delivered. “The U.S. had suggested that the LEU could be held in the custody of IAEA, which would guarantee that no country could confiscate it. The Iranians countered by saying that if IAEA custody was acceptable to the West, then the LEU could be put under IAEA custody while remaining on Iranian soil, perhaps on the island of Kish in the Persian Gulf. Moreover, instead of sending out the LEU in one shipment, the risk would be more evenly spread if it were divided into two or three shipments. For each shipment, Iran would simultaneously receive fuel pads. This way, neither side could benefit from violating the agreement. But these proposals were not acceptable to the U.S., Russia and France.”
Iran’s concession
Iran offered a key concession. It agreed to ship out the LEU instead of conducting a swap in Iran, but insisted, understandably, on guarantees for delivery. The IAEA’s Director General, Mohamed ElBaradei, who was soon to retire, mediated skilfully. Japan also intervened. On both sides hardliners chafed at any compromise. Former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi of the Green Wave and Ahmadinejad’s main rival in the 2009 election said: “Today it seems like we have to surrender a major portion of the product of our country’s nuclear programme, which has caused so much uproar and has brought upon our people so many sanctions, to another country in hopes that they may out of kindness provide us with this (TRR fuel) basic need sometime in the future…. Is this a victory? Or a lie portraying surrender as victory?” On the nuclear programme all Iranians are united. But the opposition did not want Ahmadinejad to get any credit – just as the BJP does not want Manmohan Singh to get any credit for a settlement of the Kashmir dispute with Pakistan.
Now Brazil and Turkey took a hand and succeeded; only to be foiled by the U.S. On May 15, 2010, Brazil’s President, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, travelled to Iran to seek its agreement on the nuclear fuel swap in what was described as the “last big shot at engagement”. Soon thereafter, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his energetic Foreign Minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, joined Lula in an effort to convince Iran to ship out its LEU. Two days later, they stunned the U.S. and the world – they had a deal.
“Contrary to expectations, and arguably to the hopes of some, they succeeded in convincing the Iranian government to agree to a deal based on the American benchmarks – that 1,200 kilograms of Iranian LEU would be sent out in one shipment, and Iran would receive fuel pads for its Teheran Research Reactor roughly 12 months later. For a moment, it looked as if diplomacy had succeeded after all. But what could have been viewed as a diplomatic breakthrough – with Iran blinking first and succumbing to American demands – was instead treated as an effort to sabotage the new and higher objective of imposing sanctions. The twisted dance of hostility and missed opportunities between the U.S. and Iran that Obama hoped to end had just come full circle – and all within the first 16 months of his presidency.”
Brazil had a higher aim, which India must share. It wanted to break the Big Power monopoly and demonstrate that “the current structures of global governance are unjust and that emerging powers should have a greater say” on world affairs. A Brazilian diplomat told the author: “We should reform the international system. There is a major deficit of governance in this international order. We cannot continue like this.” Indeed, we cannot and must not.
But “while Washington was working on getting the permanent members of the Security Council to sign on to a new sanctions resolution, Brazil and Turkey were pursuing the revival of diplomacy. For them, the fight for diplomacy was a race against sanctions. U.S. diplomats did not discourage Brazil and Turkey’s diplomatic efforts, but the Americans and the French were growing increasingly worried that they might vote against the resolution. Though their votes were not crucial for passage of the resolution, a unified Council would send a powerful signal to Teheran. The U.S. strategy essentially came down to giving Turkey and Brazil a double message; efforts to convince Teheran to agree to the fuel swap were encouraged, but it was also important to impose new sanctions on Iran. And, according to the Obama administration, sanctions would actually help get the Iranians to agree to the fuel swap. While the Brazilians contended that sanctions could ‘close the door to further diplomatic efforts’, the U.S. argued that sanctions would keep ‘the diplomatic option alive’ and reduce the risk of a military conflict. ‘Personally speaking, I think it’s only after we pass sanctions in the Security Council that Iran will negotiate in good faith,’ [Secretary of State Hillary] Clinton said.
“But the argument did not resonate. In early March Clinton travelled to Brazil to win Brasilia’s support for sanctions. Even though she offered full U.S. backing of Brazil’s bid to gain a permanent seat on the Council, the Brazilians would not bend.” The U.S.’ double talk verged on deceit. Note the bait to Brazil, which it spurned.
Obama’s letter
Lula and Erdogan were armed with a letter from Obama dated April 20, 2010, a week after their talks with Obama at the nuclear summit in Washington. It bears quotation in extenso. He spelled out the important markers that any agreement would have to meet to be acceptable to the U.S. “For us, Iran’s agreement to transfer 1,200 kg of Iran’s low enriched uranium (LEU) out of the country would build confidence and reduce regional tensions by substantially reducing Iran’s LEU stockpile. I want to underscore that this element is of fundamental importance for the United States,” the letter said.
Obama also presented a compromise mechanism that the U.S. had floated back in November 2009 – the idea that the Iranian LEU could be held in Turkey in “escrow” until the fuel was delivered to Iran. It said:
“Last November, the IAEA conveyed to Iran our offer to allow Iran to ship its 1,200 kg of LEU to a third country – specifically Turkey – at the outset of the process to be held ‘in escrow’ as a guarantee during the fuel production process that Iran would get back its uranium if we failed to deliver the fuel. Iran has never pursued the ‘escrow’ compromise and has provided no credible explanation for its rejection…. I would urge Brazil to impress upon Iran the opportunity presented by this offer to ‘escrow’ its uranium in Turkey while the nuclear fuel is being produced.”
The letter spelt out three substantive points relating to the questions of quantity (1,200 kg), timing (shipped out immediately, with the fuel rods delivered a year later), and place (an escrow in Turkey). It asked Iran to send its reply to the IAEA in writing within seven days rather than to any individual state. Obama thus led Turkey and Brazil up the garden path.
For the first time, Iran’s right to enrich uranium was recognised, albeit tacitly. But it was also required to give up its right to enrich to 19.75 per cent. The right was recognised only to be curbed. Iran made a concession towards the end of the first day of talks: it expressed a willingness to escrow its LEU in Turkey. Once this point had been confirmed, Erdogan decided to join the talks and flew in from Ankara around midnight on May 15. The trust deficit impeded progress.
“To reassure the Iranians, the Turks showed them Obama’s letter to Erdogan (which was identical to his letter to Lula) and made the case that they had Washington’s interest in the deal in writing. This proved decisive in convincing the Iranians to agree to the American parameters of the swap deal. By the end of the second day of talks, an agreement was within reach. The Turks and the Brazilians had succeeded in convincing Iran to hand over 1,200 kg of LEU in one shipment in order to receive fuel pads for its research reactor within the next twelve months – the same parameters Teheran had rejected eight months earlier in Vienna. The LEU, however, would not go to Russia or France. Instead, it would be put in Turkey under IAEA seal, and, if the West violated the terms of the agreement, Iran could take its LEU back.”
Teheran Declaration
Lula met Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei. It was clear that he endorsed the deal. The document came to be known as the Teheran Declaration. It was no more than a page and a half and contained only 10 points. The author has done a service in reproducing its substance and portions of the text.
“The first clause reiterated that all states have the right, according to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), to develop the research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination. The clause also made explicit that enrichment activities are included in that right… something the NPT did not do. The fourth clause clarified that the agreement ‘is a starting point to begin cooperation’. The details of the agreement were spelled out in the following paragraphs:
“5. Based on the above, in order to facilitate the nuclear cooperation mentioned above, the Islamic Republic of Iran agrees to deposit 1,200 kilograms of LEU in Turkey. While in Turkey this LEU will continue to be the property of Iran, Iran and the IAEA may station observers to monitor the safekeeping of the LEU in Turkey.
IRANIAN PRESIDENT MAHMOUD Ahmadinejad (centre), with his Brazilian counterpart Luis Inacio Lula da Silva (left) and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan before signing an agreement to ship 1,200 kg of Iran’s enriched uranium to Turkey in a nuclear fuel swap deal, in Teheran on May 17, 2010.
“6. Iran will notify the IAEA in writing through official channels of its agreement with the above within seven days following the date of this declaration. Upon the positive response of the Vienna Group (U.S., Russia, France and the IAEA) further details of the exchange will be elaborated through a written agreement and proper arrangement between Iran and the Vienna Group that specifically committed themselves to deliver 120 kilograms of fuel needed for the Teheran Research Reactor (TRR).
“7. When the Vienna Group declares its commitment to this provision, then both parties would commit themselves to the implementation of the agreement mentioned in item 6. The Islamic Republic of Iran expressed its readiness to deposit its LEU (1,200 kilograms) within one month. On the basis of the same agreement, the Vienna Group should deliver 120 kilograms fuel required for TRR in no later than one year.
“8. In case the provisions of this Declaration are not respected, Turkey, upon the request of Iran, will return swiftly and unconditionally Iran’s LEU to Iran.”
It was made public at a press conference held by representatives of Iran, Turkey and Brazil. As many as 234 members of Iran’s Parliament of 290 members, including the Speaker, the President’s bitter opponent, supported it.
Obama chooses sanctions
No condemnation can be too severe for those who wrecked this historic accord. It was the U.S’ leaders in complicity with the leaders of Russia and China; a grim reflection of the cynicism that pervades the play of global politics. Let Trita Parsi describe the deed. “Unbeknownst to Turkey and Brazil, the Obama administration had secured final approval for the sanctions resolution from Russia and China only a day before Lula arrived in Teheran. A series of concessions had been made to Russia and China since early April to secure their Security Council votes for the sanctions, starting with a new nuclear disarmament treaty (START) on April 8. Immediately thereafter, Moscow signalled its support for sanctions in principle. As the deliberations at the U.N. continued, additional concessions were made, including the lifting of American sanctions against the Russian military complex; an end to NATO expansion; cancellation of the Russian sale of the S300 anti-aircraft missiles to Iran; and the scrapping of the proposed missile defence shield in Europe.”
This should be a good lesson for our foreign affairs community. The author aptly remarks: “Between instituting sanctions and getting one bomb’s worth of LEUs out of Iran, Washington had chosen the former.” Analysis, like the surgeon’s knife, must cut through. Why did the U.S. make such a choice? The obvious answer is that it preferred to parley after the sanctions had begun to tell. The deeper cause is America’s mindset, which Obama shares fully. It is the hubris of power. The deed done, all kinds of excuses were invented and retailed to justify the action, “reading the other side’s motions in the worst possible way”, as a senior Obama administration official put it. As agreed, Iran provided a written acceptance of the Teheran Declaration to the IAEA. Within a week Brazil leaked Obama’s letter to the press.
PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev sign the New START treaty at the Prague Castle in Prague on April 8, 2010. This was part of the “series of concessions” made to Russia and China to secure their Security Council votes for sanctions against Iran. Immediately thereafter, Moscow signalled its support for sanctions in principle.
Iran was prepared to compromise on the higher-level enrichment once the deal went through. The Declaration marked the beginning, not the end of the process of reconciliation. Obama was not prepared for the reconciliation. Sanctions were mounted.
The author’s summing up is fair. “The White House believed that a nuclear deal could be sold domestically only if Iran was first punished through a new round of sanctions. Only then would there be receptivity in Washington for a nuclear agreement with Teheran. Hence, any nuclear deal that came before a new round of sanctions would complicate the Obama administration’s domestic challenge. A deal without punishment – even a good deal – simply would not be enough. ‘The impression, right or wrong, that was created was that we could not take yes for an answer,’ a former senior Obama administration official told me.”
Trita Parsi is a diplomatic historian of high order. He astutely remarks: “Had the agenda been wider from the outset, progress on one issue could have been used to break the deadlock on another issue. Larger agendas can provide greater manoeuvrability for creative solutions. In addition, though the fuel swap was supposed to be a confidence-building measure, it soon turned into a precondition for continued diplomacy; unless Iran agreed to the swap, no other diplomatic activity would take place.
“This approach, which in essence confused the strategic goal of establishing a functioning and sustainable diplomatic process with the tactical benefit of the fuel swap as a confidence-building measure, was highly problematic. It ensured that failure to agree on what was supposed to be a confidence-building measure would lead to a grinding halt of the entire agenda of U.S.-Iran negotiations. Usually in negotiations, if one confidence-building measure does not work, another is put to the test. Confidence-building measures are not treated as the endgame of negotiations.”
Obama emerges very much as a weak leader, in thrall to Congress and Israel. He never fights for what he believes in and leaves much doubt as to what he really believes in apart from holding power. Sanctions become not an aid to diplomacy but an alternative to diplomacy.
Since we hear adnauseam about trusting Pakistan or China, President Lula da Silva’s wise remarks to the author must be kept in mind by any policymaker: “It’s not about trusting anyone. It’s about generating the mechanics under which people can prove that they deserve that trust. That’s what it’s about.”
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Failing To Find Peace
Excerpt from “A Single Roll of the Dice”
by Trita Parsi
25-Jan-2012
Excerpted from Trita Parsi’s A Single Roll of the Dice: Obama’s Diplomacy with Iran (Yale University press). Parsi, a Middle East foreign policy expert with extensive Capitol Hill and United Nations experience, interviewed 70 high-ranking officials from the U.S., Iran, Europe, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Brazil—including the top American and Iranian negotiators—for this book. Parsi uncovers the previously unknown story of American and Iranian negotiations during Obama’s early years as president, the calculations behind the two nations’ dealings, and the real reasons for their current stalemate.
The 30-year-old U.S.-Iran enmity is no longer a phenomenon; it is an institution. For three decades, politicians and bureaucrats in both countries have made careers out of demonizing each other. Firebrands in Iran have won political points by adding an ideological dimension to an already rooted animosity. Shrewd politicians, in turn, have shamelessly used ideology to advance their political objectives. Neighboring states in the Persian Gulf and beyond have taken advantage of this estrangement, often kindling the flames of division.
Israel and some of its supporters in the United States, in particular, have feared that a thaw in U.S. relations with Iran would come at the expense of America’s special friendship with the Jewish state.
But the strategic cost to the United States and Iran of this prolonged feud has been staggering. Harming both and benefiting neither, the U.S.-Iran estrangement has complicated Washington’s efforts to advance the peace process between the Israelis and Palestinians in the 1990s, win the struggle against al-Qaeda, or defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan and the insurgency in Iraq. Still, the strategic cost of this enmity has oftentimes been dwarfed by the domestic political cost to overcome it. In Washington, the political cost for attempting to resolve tensions with Iran has simply been too great and the political space too narrow to justify starting down a fraught and uncertain path to peace with Iran. Political divisions, in turn, have paralyzed Tehran at key intervals, with vying political factions not wishing to see their competitors define the outcome of a U.S.-Iran rapprochement or get credit for reducing tensions.
The hostility has been institutionalized because either too many forces on both sides calculate that they can better advance their own narrow interests by retaining the status quo, or the predictability of enmity is preferred to the unpredictability of peace making. Thus, over the years, this antipathy has survived — and hardened — because the cost of maintaining the status quo has not outweighed the risk of seeking peace — until 2008, that is.
With the election of Barack Obama, the stars aligned for a radical shift in U.S.-Iran relations. Tensions between the United States and Iran had risen dramatically during the Bush administration, putting the two countries on the verge of war. While the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and the occupation of Iraq put American troops on Iran’s eastern and western borders, respectively, the defeat of the Taliban and the end of Saddam Hussein’s reign also removed two of Iran’s key regional rivals from the strategic chessboard. Freed from the burden of its long-standing enemies, Iran was now a fast-ascending power that astutely took advantage of America’s inability to win the peace in the Middle East. At the same time, Iran’s advancing nuclear program added more fuel to the fire. Increasingly, Iran’s rise, combined with America’s painful predicament in the region, rendered a continuation of the U.S.-Iran rift too costly. Iran and the United States were gravitating toward a confrontation that neither could afford.
Meanwhile, the American public had turned against not only president George W. Bush’s invasion of Afghanistan and occupation of Iraq, but also the ideological foundation of Bush’s worldview. Previously, Beltway hawks maintained that negotiations and compromise were not mere tools of diplomacy, but rather rewards that should be granted only to states that deserved an opportunity to talk to the United States. Inspired by this philosophy, Bush refused to engage with Iran during his entire presidency, even on issues of such importance as Iraq and Afghanistan (with the exception of episodic instances of brief diplomatic outreach for tactical purposes). Moreover, the neoconservative philosophy, viewing the United States as the source of legitimacy at home and abroad, dictated that talking to the autocratic rulers in Tehran would help legitimize Iran’s theocratic and repressive government. But while refusing engagement with Iran upheld a sense of ideological purity for the Bush White House, it did nothing to address the growing challenge that Iran posed to the United States in the region. During the Bush presidency, Iran amassed more than 8,000 centrifuges for its nuclear program while expanding its influence in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Lebanon.
This reality was widely acknowledged in the United States toward the end of the Bush administration. In March 2006 Congress appointed a bipartisan Iraq Study Group to assess the Iraq war and to make policy recommendations. One of the group’s key endorsements was direct U.S. dialogue with Iran over Iraq and the situation in the Middle East–a stark refutation of the Bush White House ideology. And in September 2008, only two months before the U.S. presidential elections, five former secretaries of state — Madeleine Albright, Colin Powell, Warren Christopher, Henry A. Kissinger, and James A. Baker III — called on the United States to talk to Iran.
Then-Senator Obama recognized that unprecedented political space had emerged for new foreign policy thinking. So rather than shying away from the issue of diplomacy with Iran, Obama took the unusual step of making engagement with U.S. adversaries a central part of his foreign policy platform during the 2008 presidential election–something that, under normal circumstances in Washington, would have been considered political suicide. In the televised presidential debates, Obama boldly declared that it was “critical” that we “talk to the Syrians and the Iranians,” and that those saying that the United States “shouldn’t be talking to them ignore our own history.”
Finally, the persona of Barack Obama himself was an important factor. He was a most unlikely candidate–and the most difficult one for the Iranian leadership to dismiss or vilify. Born to a Kenyan Muslim father and a American Midwestern mother, Obama spent most of his childhood in Hawaii and, later, in Indonesia, after his mother was remarried to an Indonesian. Having been exposed to both the Muslim and Christian religions, having grown up in a Third World country shortly after it had won its independence from colonial powers, and having the middle name Hussein–the name of one of the most revered figures in Shia tradition–Obama simply did not fit the Iranian stereotype of American, “imperialist” leaders–arrogant, ignorant, and incapable of empathizing with the grievances of Third World states against Western powers.
Clearly, Obama recognized the historic opportunity that lay before him. Only twelve and a half minutes into his presidency, he sought to seize it by extending America’s hand of friendship in the hope that Iran would unclench its fist.
A year and a half into his presidency, President Barack Obama was celebrating not the diplomatic victory he had been seeking, but rather the imposition of sanctions he had hoped to avoid. Despite extensive outreach, clear strategic benefits, and an unprecedented opportunity for engagement, Obama found himself stuck in the same confrontational relationship with Iran as that of other American presidents before him. And, as many officials in his administration had suspected, while sanctions might have been politically imperative from a domestic standpoint and could make life more difficult for the Iranians, they were not a solution to the standoff with Iran. “While Iran’s leaders are feeling the pressure, the sanctions have not yet produced a change in Iran’s strategic thinking about its nuclear program,” Special Advisor for Nonproliferation and Arms Control Robert Einhorn told an audience at the Arms Control Association in Washington, D.C., on March 9, 2011. Instead, under Obama’s watch, the cycle of escalation and counterescalation continued with no sign of a solution in the offing.
While most of Obama’s domestic critics opposed his pursuit of diplomacy on the grounds that talking with Iran was useless and morally questionable, a few voices also disapproved of his engagement policy as being insincere and aimed only at paving the way for sanctions. Neither criticism is well grounded. Diplomacy was not only a strategic necessity, but also the least costly avenue to address the tensions with Iran. And rather than being a well-designed conspiracy, the president’s vision for diplomacy was genuine, as was his initial outreach. But faced with overwhelming resistance from Israel, Congress, Saudi Arabia, and other Arab allies, skeptics within his own administration and, most importantly, the actions of the Iranian government itself, the president’s vision and political space were continually compromised. In the end, the diplomacy Obama pursued was only a shadow of the engagement he had envisioned.
Obama’s vision for engagement met stiff resistance from the outset. The Iranians themselves, however, dealt the biggest blow to Obama. The election fraud and ensuing human rights violations strengthened the arguments of Obama’s domestic critics and made the administration all the more reluctant to defend its engagement policy. These events also bolstered the critics of engagement within the administration who viewed the election fallout as vindication of their skepticism.
“You have the rigged elections of June 2009. Then the protests. And then, in a way, the moment was lost,” David Miliband, then-foreign secretary of the United Kingdom, told me. The elections had a deep psychological impact on the administration. Though it stuck to its engagement policy and refused to come out in favor of the Green movement, its willingness to take bold steps on Iran essentially ended. Engagement started to become too risky and, with no immediate political benefits for the president domestically, the inclination was to revert to one’s comfort zone. “When you don’t know what’s going on, and you don’t feel like you have somebody you can communicate with on the other side of the table, you are going to revert back to what’s safe,” a State Department official explained. “And what’s safe in the Iran context is demonization and just general negativity.” By the time engagement finally could begin, in October 2009, Obama’s room for maneuverability — and his political will to fight for greater flexibility — were almost nonexistent. He desperately needed a quick victory to create more time and space for diplomacy. But precisely because of his loss of maneuverability, he had little flexibility in negotiations and the discussions quickly turned into a “take-it-or-leave-it” proposition — the very approach that was doomed to fail.
In Vienna, the Iranians dealt a second blow to Obama by refusing to accept the Russian-American swap proposal without any revisions. Though administration officials recognized that the primary reason for Iran’s refusal was paralysis caused by political infighting at home, the impact was the same: Obama had nothing to show for his outreach. His own party was revolting against him in Congress on this issue; many in his administration felt uneasy about the portrayal of the White House as insensitive to the plight of Iranian pro-democracy protesters defying the Islamic Republic’s repression; and the Israeli government was reportedly turning to high-level Democratic donors to exert additional pressure on Obama to forsake diplomacy in order to save the Democratic Party in the upcoming midterm elections. Moreover, Iran’s continued political paralysis made the potential for additional diplomacy unclear at best. Once the decision was made to activate the sanctions track, diplomacy had disappeared in all but name. That first became evident when Washington informed Tokyo that its efforts to mediate a solution were no longer welcome, and occurred again when Brazil and Turkey’s successful bid to convince Tehran to agree to the Obama administration’s terms for the fuel swap was brusquely rejected. Obama’s open hand had turned into a clenched fist.
Throughout this period, despite the Iranian recognition of Obama’s political dilemma at home, a combination of factors caused Tehran to refrain from helping create more space for engagement. On the one hand, doubts about Obama’s intentions and abilities made an already risk-averse leadership in Tehran more disinclined to take a gamble for peace. “I don’t think the Iranians quite knew what to make about the American outreach,” Miliband said. “I think that it was such a change for them, that they didn’t quite know how to handle it.”
Even if the Iranians maintained the assumption that Obama genuinely wished to resolve the tensions between the two countries, they still doubted his ability to break with long-standing American policies on Iran in order to confront the forces of the status quo in Washington and beyond. Investing in an American president whose intentions and abilities were questionable was a tough sell in Tehran. The hard-line Iranian newspaper Kayhan called Obama “impotent” and asked rhetorically, “Who is wearing the trousers within the U.S. political hierarchy?” Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s insistence that Washington offer signs of real strategic change rather than just a change in tone was partly aimed at testing Obama’s intentions and abilities for this very purpose. When I challenged one of Iran’s nuclear negotiators on the Islamic Republic’s deep skepticism of Obama and the unique opportunities Tehran risked missing as a result, the official was unapologetic. “The U.S. should resolve its domestic political issues itself,” he said. As time passed and Tehran increasingly perceived Obama as “no different from Bush in action,” Iran’s attitude hardened and the absence of action to help Obama turned into a desire to see him fail. Obama’s opposition to war, it was said, was due not to a desire for peace but rather to America’s lack of capability for war as a result of its engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan.
According to a former Iranian diplomat who maintains close contact with the leadership in Tehran, the Iranians still “regarded U.S. engagement as another means to get Iran to surrender.” And after the failure in Vienna, where the Iranians concluded that accepting the fuel swap would not end the demand for Iran to suspend its enrichment activities, the Iranian takeaway message was that America’s position on Iran had not changed much.
“What had been a precondition under Bush — the suspension of enrichment — had become a postcondition under Obama,” said Mohammad Khazaee, Iran’s ambassador to the UN. But rather than engaging in deliberate deception, the Obama administration simply had not settled on a desired endgame with Iran, on the nuclear issue or otherwise. For the Obama White House, the destination of diplomacy was simply a function of the journey. Still, the lack of clarity on the endgame was not just a point of criticism by Iran or by the president’s domestic opponents. Even senior Obama administration officials were unclear on the strategy and the endgame, as evidenced by the leaked three-page memo, signed by Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, that warned of the
U.S. lack of a coherent, long-term plan to deal with Iran’s steady progress toward a nuclear capability. The memo came to light in April 2010 but was penned in January of that year — just as the U.S. was embarking on the sanctions track.
There is the question of whether the Iranian government actually desires a deal with the United States. A common school of thought in Washington states that enmity with America — the “Great Satan” — is one of the uncompromising pillars of the Islamic Republic. As a result, Tehran cannot come to terms with Washington without risking an internal identity and legitimacy crisis. The state ideology of the regime requires enmity with the U.S., and without it the internal contradictions of the Islamic Republic would reach a breaking point. Iran’s periodic reluctance to engage with the U.S. is grounded in this ideological rigidity rather than in internal divisions in Iran, mistrust of the U.S., or disinterest in the specific deals the U.S. has put on the table. The main obstacle to a diplomatic breakthrough is not the manner of the diplomacy or its extent or lack thereof, or the specifics of the deal, but rather the regime’s DNA.
The calculations of the Iranian hard-liners are, however, not so mysterious and incomprehensible that analysts have to resort to genetics to make sense of them. Part of the reluctance of hard-liners in Iran to negotiate with the U.S. has been rooted not necessarily in these ideological factors but in the fear that any relationship with the U.S. would force Iran to adopt policies in the region that are aligned with those of Washington and, to a certain extent, Israel. Iran would lose its independence and, much like Egypt after the Camp David agreement, its bid for leadership in the region. Moreover, by aligning with the U.S., Iran would be forced to invest in the survival of pro-American Arab dictatorships rather than pursuing policies that would win it soft power on the Arab street. Because the Iranian hard-liners have calculated that the Arab street will ultimately overthrow the monarchial and pro-American regimes in the region, Iran’s long-term security would be best achieved by aligning itself with the populace. Consequently, agreeing to any engagement with Washington — on its terms and designed to rehabilitate Iran as a compliant U.S. ally — would contradict Iran’s long-term security interests in the region.
Likely cementing the hard-liners’ view of the U.S. as an increasingly irrelevant power incapable of adjusting to the new realities of the region are the continued decline of the U.S. in the Middle East, the Arab spring of 2011, and the downfall of the regimes in Egypt, Tunisia, and beyond. Any realization that an opportunity was lost with Obama in 2009 probably has yet to sink in. “What happened is clearly proving what our officials including Supreme Leader said,” Soltanieh said. “The Americans come sometimes with the good words but in practice they might have a knife to [stick] in your back.”
Iran’s suspicions and mistrust, whether justified or not, were paralyzing. What the Iranians failed to appreciate was that Obama’s ability to drive the policy and “wear the pants” within the U.S. government was partly a function of how willing Iran was to take the same risk for peace that it had grown accustomed to taking for a continuation of the long-standing “no-war, no-peace” stalemate. In retrospect, once George W. Bush took office in 2001 and adopted a confrontational approach to Iran, reformists in former president Mohammad Khatami’s circle came to regret their failure to reciprocate President Bill Clinton’s outreach. The unprecedented willingness of the Obama administration to reach out to Iran and embark on a cautious reconciliation process, even if inadequate, is unlikely to be re-created by any later U.S. administration for some time. Likewise, the opportunity Iran had with Obama in the first months of his presidency will likely not be fully appreciated by the decision makers in Tehran until much later.
Seeking to pin the failure on either side does not offer a better understanding of the complexity of the conflict. At times, both sides showed goodwill, but at other times both were overtaken by their suspicions and fears. Both sides miscalculated and made mistakes, and both sides felt that the other side was taking a smaller share of the risk for peacemaking. Both sides were interested at different times in some sort of a deal; the question was and remains whether they have been seeking the same deal. Only through sustained, persistent, and patient diplomacy can that question be answered.
Ultimately, the failure of diplomacy between the U.S. and Iran came down to insufficient political will and the atmosphere of mistrust that granted neither side any margin for error. The proposals put on the table may have been flawed; at different points either side may have played for time or sought to delay talks; and goodwill measures may not have been reciprocated. But these phenomena do not make U.S.-Iran talks unique; they are common features in almost all negotiations. Talks that succeed do not do so because the proposals are flawless and because both sides play fair. Rather, they succeed because the many flaws associated with the talks are overcome by the political will to reach a solution.
The will for a diplomatic solution must be strong enough to overcome every last hurdle. In the case of the U.S. and Iran, diplomacy was in effect abandoned at the first hurdle. And though the desire for diplomacy was genuine, the administration’s lack of confidence in its chances of succeeding — several high-level officials in the Obama administration told me separately that they did not believe diplomacy would work — raises the question as to whether the White House would fully invest in a policy it believed would fail. Lack of political will also plagued the bureaucracy. After the June election in Iran, in particular, a combination of fear and “old think” — sticking to old patterns because they were comfortable and less risky — set in and helped reduce the will to see diplomacy through.
“People are just afraid of their own shadows,” a senior State Department official said. “You propose something and people all scurry for cover. … There is a collective inability to break the patterns of the past and the principles of the past. I mean, thirty years of doing something in a certain way is pretty powerful.” This “collective inability,” which is also present on the Iranian side but not necessarily for the same reasons, is what makes U.S.-Iranian tensions more than just an antagonistic relationship. It is an institutionalized enmity.
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A Single Roll of the Dice: sharp analysis of Iran diplomacy
Fran Hawthorne
As the founder of an advocacy group for Iranian-Americans, Trita Parsi has a wide network of contacts throughout the Middle East, and, clearly, he has reached out to that network to provide fascinating insights into the recent history of US-Iranian relations. He deserves credit for being scrupulously fair in laying out all the sides in diplomatic arguments, not just the ones that align with his organisation’s viewpoint. But the problem with A Single Roll of the Dice is that Parsi, despite carefully pruning all these trees, misses the forest.
Never once does the book acknowledge what many already assume: that Iran is developing nuclear weapons. Theoretically, his thesis has some valid points even if it seems a nonsense to completely ignore that assumption.
Parsi asserts that sanctions will not work against Iran, military action would be a disaster, and therefore the United States must pursue negotiations more strenuously. As he writes, “containment without a sustained effort to resolve their conflict puts the US and Iran permanently on the verge of war”. Moreover, he continues, the negotiations should include other issues besides Iran’s nuclear efforts “such as the possibility of US-Iran cooperation in Afghanistan, stability in Iraq, and the human-rights situation in Iran”.
The book focuses on the first 18 months of Barack Obama’s presidency, when, in Parsi’s view, each country threw away a crucial opportunity to alter what he calls their “institutionalised enmity”. First, in the autumn of 2009, the Obama administration – breaking with 30 years of US policy – held direct talks with Iranian officials. The United States, Europe, Russia and the International Atomic Energy Agency thought they had a deal in which Iran would trade uranium that could potentially be enriched to weapons level in return for lower-grade fuel for its civilian reactors. However, Iran delayed, demanded changes and finally backed away. Then, the following spring, Brazil and Turkey managed to get the Tehran regime to accept a similar deal. But by then, the UN Security Council was steaming towards sanctions, and the other countries were no longer interested in signing any swap agreement.
To research all this, the author says he conducted more than 60 interviews “with diplomats, negotiators, and decision makers” from Brazil, the European Union, Iran, Israel, Japan, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the United States. He also read “confidential state documents of the parties involved” that he obtained from government officials or via WikiLeaks.
Presumably, he developed many of these contacts through the National Iranian American Council, which he established soon after the September 2001 attacks. According to its website, it is “a non-partisan, non-profit organisation dedicated to advancing the interests of the Iranian-American community” by (although it doesn’t say so in these exact words) lobbying government officials. It opposes broad-based sanctions, criticises the current Iranian government’s human-rights record and supports the populist protests in that country.
Thanks to this impressive research, Parsi provides a sharp analysis of Iran’s domestic politics and a rare look into the mindset of its leaders. He dismisses the standard explanation – that Iran dare not negotiate because “enmity with America … is one of the uncompromising pillars of the Islamic Republic” – as too simplistic. Rather, he writes, officials fear that negotiations would essentially “force Iran to adopt policies in the region that are aligned with those of Washington and, to a certain extent, Israel. Iran would lose its independence.”
Any hope of rapprochement shrank dramatically after President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s controversial re-election in June 2009 and the government’s violent clampdown on civilian protesters in the Green movement. That added internal politics to the hostile mix: Ayatollah Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, “has opposed talks with the US to rob his political rivals of credit”, the book says.
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Book Description
Have the diplomatic efforts of the Obama administration toward Iran failed? Was the Bush administration’s emphasis on military intervention, refusal to negotiate, and pursuit of regime change a better approach? How can the United States best address the ongoing turmoil in Tehran? This book provides a definitive and comprehensive analysis of the Obama administration’s early diplomatic outreach to Iran and discusses the best way to move toward more positive relations between the two discordant states.
Trita Parsi, a Middle East foreign policy expert with extensive Capitol Hill and United Nations experience, interviewed 70 high-ranking officials from the U.S., Iran, Europe, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Brazil—including the top American and Iranian negotiators—for this book. Parsi uncovers the previously unknown story of American and Iranian negotiations during Obama’s early years as president, the calculations behind the two nations’ dealings, and the real reasons for their current stalemate. Contrary to prevailing opinion, Parsi contends that diplomacy has not been fully tried. For various reasons, Obama’s diplomacy ended up being a single roll of the dice. It had to work either immediately—or not at all. Persistence and perseverance are keys to any negotiation. Neither Iran nor the U.S. had them in 2009.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
(Gary Sick )
“Trita Parsi’s gripping account is a must-read for anyone fascinated by the human details of recent diplomacy. Parsi recounts it all—the misunderstandings, the fears, the prejudices, the ambitions, and the misreading—that have hobbled American efforts to end three decades of futility with Iran.”—John Limbert, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State under the Obama administration (John Limbert )
(Reza Aslan )
(Publishers Weekly )
(Barbara Slavin IPS)
About the Author
Trita Parsi is president of the National Iranian American Council and a former Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. In 2010 he received the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order, and he is frequently consulted by Western and Asian governments on foreign policy matters. He lives in McLean, VA.
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| Most Helpful Customer Reviews 2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A key to unlock the present US-Iran-Israel crisis,February 8, 2012
By
This review is from: A Single Roll of the Dice: Obama’s Diplomacy with Iran (Hardcover)
This is a well- researched well- documented work. Mr. Trita Parsi is a respected Iranian-American scholar whose previous work, “The Unholy Alliance” is a classic work on relations between the US, Iran and Israel. His intimate knowledge of Persian language, affords him a unique ability to navigate the tortuous course of statements and comments made by the Iranian politicians and diplomats. He has interviewed a large number of influential in-office and out-of-office politicians, diplomats and technocrats of all stripes. He is one of the few Iranians who are engaged in the task of trying to bring about a resolution to the festering relationship between the US and Iran. And like almost all of them he is subject to the attacks of the individuals, groups and states that each has an agenda of its own. The attacks are vicious and concerted. A review of the negative comments and the uniformity of their language is a good indication of the organized form of these attacks. The book is a valuable source of information on this convoluted and dangerous path. It should be a mandatory reading on all sides of the conflict before the verbal conflict turns into an event of diabolical dimensions. It is a handbook written for those who are seeking a peaceful solution to this problem. Let us keep in mind that if we do not heed the wise and achievable recommendations made by the author, the world would be thrown into a predictably disastrous, unfathomable abyss more treacherous than the last century’s conflicts combined 22 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars This book is indispensable,January 3, 2012
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This review is from: A Single Roll of the Dice: Obama’s Diplomacy with Iran (Kindle Edition)
This book is so good that even though I purchased it for my kindle, I will buy the hardcover too so I can thoroughly mark it up for future reference. MJ Rosenberg 1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Soon to be the bible of US policy makers and analysts,February 2, 2012
This review is from: A Single Roll of the Dice: Obama’s Diplomacy with Iran (Hardcover)
With Iran looming as the foremost foreign policy challenge of the day, Dr. Trita Parsi’s timely book is essential reading. No other book currently available recounts the successes and failures of US-Iran diplomacy under Obama in it’s proper historical context. With unprecedented access to senior officials in the US, EU, Brazil, Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Israel, Parsi has managed to piece together a comprehensive account that is sure to be a bible for policy makers dealing with Iran the world over. For Iran followers within the Obama administration and outside, Parsi has identified the mistakes made on all sides so that upcoming negotiations and engagement with Iran don’t suffer from the trivial mistakes made previously that led to a premature end to negotiations. For Iranian readers, much of the book’s value lies in its redefining of what it means to oppose the Islamic regime. While the overthrow of the mullahs in Tehran has been a top priority for Iranians, no clear policy options have existed to bring that about. In a clear and sophisticated manner, Parsi lays out a fresh approach toward shorting the Islamic Republic’s shel-life. He also reconciles the twin imperatives that Iranians face by arguing that opposition to war and crippling sanctions may be the best and only policy option if the goal is the demise of Iran’s theocracy in favor of democracy. The clearly written info packed book is full of new revelations and is sure to become the go-to guidebook for anyone interested in Iran from a foreign affairs perspective. Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
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5.0 out of 5 stars A penetrating look at Obama’s diplomacy toward Iran
In this penetrating, thoughtful and engaging book, Trita Parsi provides the reader with a rare glimpse into the complexities of Obama administration’s policy toward Islamic… Read more Published 18 days ago by Manochehr Dorraj
1.0 out of 5 stars The Soft Side of Regime Change Trita Parsi’s A Single Roll of the Dice
Trita Parsi’s A Single Roll of the Dice Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann LeverettAs America and Israel draw ever closer to open warfare against Iran, it is… Read more Published 18 days ago by Arash Irandoost
1.0 out of 5 stars Only US and Israel haters will be narrow-minded enough to go anywhere near this book
It is truly appalling how anyone can rate this book as anything other than abysmal. Parsi and his organization NIAC are well known to Iranians worldwide and many Americans as… Read more Published 19 days ago by Shirzan
5.0 out of 5 stars A great read.
Trita Parsi does a great job analyzing U.S.-Iran relations. He has interviewed top officials in various governments and organizations, people with varying prisms of viewpoint on… Read more Published 20 days ago by Eiman Zolfaghari
5.0 out of 5 stars Highly Recommended
Dr. Trita Parsi’s Single Roll of the Dice is an excellent book and truly lives up to the hype. The book analyzes the factors and considerations that went into Obama’s diplomacy… Read more Published 21 days ago by Sam Maktaba
5.0 out of 5 stars The facts on Iran
This is a great book for the trigger happy republican IDIOT mindset of the US population. Somehow the US is the only country that is bombing and kiling people but everyone ELSE… Read more Published 24 days ago by Bardia
5.0 out of 5 stars The best account of Obama’s Iran diplomacy
If you want to understand the conflict between the United States and Iran and the options for resolving that conflict, you simply must read this book. Read more Published 1 month ago by DC Dave
1.0 out of 5 stars An Apologist
Trita Parsi is an apologist for the evil Iranian regime. I’d urge you not to buy this book. He is certainly not a real expert and not a worthy source of info on Iran. Read more Published 1 month ago by Kash
1.0 out of 5 stars Lies, Lies, Lies,
This book is not worth your dollar or your time.Mr.Parsi is known for doing the bidding on behalf of the Islamic regime.A terrorist regime! What Mr. Read more Published 1 month ago by voracious reader
1.0 out of 5 stars Deceptive at Best
Mr.Parsi is known within the Iranian – American community for his activities of doing the bidding on behalf of the Islamic regime. Read more Published 1 month ago by Persian Pride
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- Thursday 16th February 2012 | Rabi-ul-Awwal 24, 1433
Last updated: 3 hours ago
Negotiation US style
LIKE individuals, nations have a style, an attitude and an outlook. They are reflected most strikingly in the style of their diplomacy. Our region is at a crossroads today. Afghanistan holds the key to regional peace; so does Iran. The United States` diplomacy on both will make the big difference between peace and protracted conflict.
Last Tuesday, on Jan 24, Yale University Press published a book with stunning revelations, based on official records and briefings. In May 2010, Turkey and Brazil had successfully negotiated with Iran an accord on the nuclear question, the Tehran Declaration. It was in conformity with a letter to the mediators by President Barack Obama.
Iran would have parted with 1,200kg of low-enriched uranium, about a half of its stockpile as a prelude to a wider accord. The US scuttled it and instead drummed up support in the UN Security Council for sanctions against Iran. The book`s title is A Single Roll of the Dice and its author is a highly respected scholar Trita Parsi who is frequently consulted by western and Asian governments.
In an earlier book Treacherous Alliance he had exposed how the US rebuffed Iran`s overture for peace in May 2003, made through Swiss ambassador Tim Guldimann.
It is a certain mindset which inspires such behaviour. It was explained by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton: “It`s only after we pass sanctions in the Security Council that Iran will negotiate in good faith.” Since Iran had already demonstrated its good faith, by accepting the declaration, a fact the mediators accepted, she implied clearly that the US would force Iran to yield further under duress.
As an American official told Trita Parsi, the impression was created that “we could not take yes for an answer”. Prof Nicholas Burns noted last week that “we have not had a serious and sustained negotiation with the Iranian government in more than 30 years”.
This policy has a long pedigree. On Feb 8, 1950 Secretary of State Dean Acheson said that the United States` policy was, indeed, to bring about understandings, but “by creating situations so strong that they can be recognised and out of them can grow agreement”. On Feb 16, he spoke of the need “to create situations of strength”. Thus was born the doctrine of `negotiation from strength`. After the collapse of the USSR the doctrine acquired menacing nuances. They would doom the US parleys with the Taliban to failure.
The omens are not propitious. On Jan 3, both the White House and the State Department welcomed the Taliban`s decision to open a political office in Qatar to provide an address for talks. There is, however, a long road to travel before negotiations can begin in earnest.
For, the White House Press Secretary Jay Carney`s remarks suggest that the US believes that the Taliban are a spent force and are suing for peace in sack cloth and ashes. The conditions he stipulated reveal the mindset of old. “…[S]tandards for reconciliation have not changed — the conditions, rather, that insurgents who are willing to lay down their arms and reconcile, must meet in order to be accepted by the Afghan government and by us.”
He amplified: “And we`ve always said that Taliban reconciliation would only come on the condition of breaking from Al Qaeda, abandoning violence and abiding by the Afghan constitution, and that remains the case.”
As Britain`s former ambassador to Afghanistan Sherard Cowper-Coles mentions in his book Cables from Kabul , the constitution was “drafted by a Frenchman and imposed by an American that was out of sync with Afghan political realities. A constitution which imposes something like 14 separate national elections in 20 years is not really sustainable, politically or economically”. It could “last only as long as the West was prepared to stay in Afghanistan to prop up the present disposition”. To the Taliban this is a non-negotiable demand. It wants all the foreign troops to leave.
The basic assumptions underlying the US `conditions` are all wrong. The Taliban had never been defeated in 2001-02 and is not negotiating now from a position of weakness. Quite the contrary. More to the point, it was a wholly unnecessary war for the US to launch — 9/11 was a horrendous act of terrorism; but it was not an act of aggression by the state of Afghanistan. It is as absurd to declare `war on terror` as it is to declare war on evil.
After 9/11 the tide was turning against Osama bin Laden and ways were being debated in Kandahar on his expulsion without loss of face. Time was needed, which “western governments thirsting for violent revenge were not prepared to give”. Two Asian and Muslim countries, Afghanistan and Iraq, were wantonly devastated and laid to waste by the US and its allies with grave consequences for the peace of the region; especially the immediate neighbours including Pakistan and Iran. That was aggression.
In both cases, negotiations provided an option; in both it was spurned and continues still to be spurned. The Qatar parleys do not inspire much confidence. This is not a bilateral matter between the US and the Taliban — a quest for a face-saver by the US to cover its ignominious retreat after the failure of a venture of criminal folly. This is a matter which concerns the countries whose peace and stability that venture undermined with grave consequences to their well-being.
With Sherard Cowper-Coles one cannot help asking “whether Obama`s America is up for the challenge of driving such a process forward with all the political and diplomatic resources such a strategy would require”. Does it have the vision to take that path of peace and the stamina to stay the course?
The writer is an author and a lawyer based in Mumbai.
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| Recently by Trita Parsi | Comments | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Around the corner |
25
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Dec 30, 2011 |
| Disgraceful Roots |
33
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Dec 02, 2011 |
As
by iraj khan on Thu Feb 02, 2012 08:41 AM PST
Iranian Americans we need to give back to this society:
This is what was announced by NIAC today:
“The 2nd Annual National Iranian American Day of Service taking place on Saturday, March 3. In the spirit of the Iranian New Year, Norooz, we will be organizing teams of volunteers in cities throughout the U.S. to participate in a variety of service projects. This is our chance to give back to those communities in which we live and work, while also sharing a piece of our rich culture and philanthropic spirit.” http://www.niacouncil.org/site/PageServer?pagename=NatlDayofService2012
Last year The National Iranian American Council (NIAC) organized 17 community service projects around the United States as part of the first ever National Iranian American Day of Service. March 12, 2011
More info
by Veiled Prophet of Khorasan on Tue Jan 31, 2012 06:31 AM PST
Thanks Amir. I want to rebut another point of Iraj Khan:
by far the greatest number of Iranian Americans (63%) cite the promotion of human rights and democracy as the most important, followed by thirty percent (30%) who cite the promotion of regime change.”
Yes but it does not mean the other 63 % do not want regime change. It just means their *first* priority is human rights. Regime change may be their second priority.
If only 6 % want an Islamic regime it means 94 % do not. That means regime change is desired by that majority. But people got different priorities. One person may have it at the top of their agenda. Another second; or at a lower level. But Amir is right without regime change we are not going to get human rights. How we get to there is another matter. Some want outside intervention others don’t. The “alaki khosh” think just want and it will happen. Realists know some action is required.
Mola Nasreddin (aka iraj khan): VPK & Reality-Bites exposed your
by AMIR1973 on Mon Jan 30, 2012 08:48 PM PST
fraud already. Have some shame. As long as there is a regime that kills Iranian men and women by the tens of thousands, that sends boys and teenagers to die in war by the hundreds of thousands, that rapes them in prison, that tortures them, and practices barbaric punishments, there can bo no human rights and no democracy for Iranians. Hence, regime change is the only way Iranians can achieve democracy and human rights. Khodetttti, Mola Nasreddin. Khodetttti.
What are the most important
by iraj khan on Mon Jan 30, 2012 08:38 PM PST
issues for Iranian Americans according to the survey:
“The survey indicates that from among a list of six issues relating to U.S.-Iran relations, by far the greatest number of Iranian Americans (63%) cite the promotion of human rights and democracy as the most important, followed by thirty percent (30%) who cite the promotion of regime change.”
The PAAIA Poll
by Veiled Prophet of Khorasan on Mon Jan 30, 2012 11:44 AM PST
it also mentioned:
In contrast, only six percent (6%) believe that any form of an “Islamic Republic” would work well in Iran.
Yes only 6% want any form of Islamic Republic. Well how could they not want a change. I bet they do not want a US led regime change.
My point was NOT about regime change by US
by Reality-Bites on Mon Jan 30, 2012 11:37 AM PST
Since the claim is NIAC represents the views of Iranian Americans, I was asking whether Trita Parsi and NIAC support regime change in Iran by the Iranian people themselves. Yes or no? If not, why not?
And on the subject of majority of Iranian Americans supporting regime change or not in Iran, from the PAAIA link “one” posted below this was the finding:
“….Iranian Americans want the Iranian regime to change. For the above mentioned self-interested reason, two-thirds of Iranian Americans believe that Iran should be a secular democracy. …”.
That sounds to me like most Iranian Americans want to see regime change in Iran, although this is only one source. So, what is NIAC’s stance on the regime change issue?
What percentage
by iraj khan on Sun Jan 29, 2012 01:19 PM PST
of Iranian Americans want ‘Regime Change’?
One may want to know:
According to the latest survey conducted by Zogby International about %30 of Iranian Americans want ‘Regime Change’.
Meanwhile %97 are against a war between Iran and United States, hence these two completely separate issues should not be confused with each other.
http://paaia.org/CMS/2011-national-survey.aspx
NIAC is not advocating ‘Regime Change’ for Iran while criticising The Islamic Repulic’s undemocratic ways. NIAC is %100 against a war between Iran and United States.
PS. I am not representing NIAC. For more information about NIAC you can go here:
http://www.niacouncil.org/site/PageServer?pagename=NIAC_index
Thanks RB
by Veiled Prophet of Khorasan on Sun Jan 29, 2012 10:53 AM PST
Regarding military strike. Yes it makes sense that Israeli would oppose it. Because a military strike if done should not be by Israel. Rather must be done by America.
I am not advocating war but point out a logical issue. If one advocates war they presumably want success; right? To get there is best to leave Israel out of it. Just like Iraq.
To add to VPK’s last point
by Reality-Bites on Sun Jan 29, 2012 09:51 AM PST
I hazard an educated guess that the great majority of Iranian Americans and indeed Iranians living outside Iran, support regime change in Iran (by the Iranian people themselves).
Do Trita Parsi and his group also support regime change in Iran? If yes, where have TP and NIAC stated this? If not, why not?
Kid Commie view of the world: No difference between USA and IRI
by Shazde Asdola Mirza on Sat Jan 28, 2012 07:16 AM PST
Amazing how much a boy’s views can be for ever shaped by his father’s Tudeh Party past.
97 % is bull
by Veiled Prophet of Khorasan on Sat Jan 28, 2012 02:41 AM PST
- Poll says 97 % of Iranian Americans oppose war.
- Parsi opposes war
- Hence he represents 97%
This is bull of course say I like lower taxes. 90% of Americans want lower taxes. Does it mean I speak for 90 % of Americans!
Bozorgmehr,
by iraj khan on Fri Jan 27, 2012 06:13 PM PST
most undisturbed human beings strive to achieve peace and harmony in their daily lives and Israeli people are not any different either.
Iraj Khan, you made my day
by Sadegh Bozorgmehr on Fri Jan 27, 2012 05:02 PM PST
I always believed that most Israelis oppose a military strike but in discussing the issue I could never say it because I hadn’t seen polling data on the subject.
This confirms what I had always thought but did not say. Polling in the Iranian American community that I’ve seen recently also shows an overwhelming majority oppose war, and if I’m not mistaken the #1 policy option among Iranian Americans is diplomacy. I think that’s a fair option that should be tried. Nothing else will create the opening for people to topple IRI and bring democracy.
War is Counter-productive
by iraj khan on Fri Jan 27, 2012 04:50 PM PST
And the issues between U.S.
and Iran can be approached and resolved diplomatically.
Most Israelies oppose a military strike against Iran too.
“A number of important states (aside from Russia and China, consider India, Brazil, and Turkey) are troubled by the hard-line that Israel and the West have taken toward Tehran; and they flatly reject the use of force against it. In Israel, top former military and intelligence officials have warned that an attack on Iran would be counterproductive, and is indeed unnecessary, and public opinion polls show that most Israelis oppose a military strike.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rajan-menon/post_2907_b_1237370.html
afshinazad
by Sadegh Bozorgmehr on Fri Jan 27, 2012 03:15 PM PST
I agree with you that trying the same approach that has been tried for 32 years isn’t going to get rid of the regime. That is precisely why sanctions against the people and threats against Iran are a bad idea. Why continue the same policies that have failed?
On a different note, the 60 followers figure you introduce here is interesting. Do you have a source for it?
Slick trick
by Doost daaram pas hastam on Fri Jan 27, 2012 03:07 PM PST
Mr
Trita Parsi writes: “cost to the United States and Iran of this
prolonged feud has been staggering. Harming both and benefiting
neither, the U.S.-Iran estrangement has complicated Washington’s
efforts to advance the peace process between the Israelis and
Palestinians in the 1990s, win the struggle against al-Qaeda, or
defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan and the insurgency in Iraq.”
That
is a very slick argument because it is true but beside the point. To
appreciate Mr Parsi’s slight of hand you should separate the IRI from
Iranian people. Once you do that it becomes clear that this animosity
benefits the IRI greatly. It will continue as long as there is an
IRI. Most US presidents tried very hard to improve relations and it
all came to nothing. Carter tried, Reagan tried, Bush senior tried,
Clinton tried and Obama tried. All such attempts were rejected. The
same is also true of European countries. They have terrible
relationship with IRI. As a matter of fact there are only a handful
of countries in the whole world that actually have friendly
relationships with the IRI. North Korea, Syria, Russia, China, and
Venezuela.
IRI
needs many enemies and a state of crisis to justify its thuggish
behavior towards its citizens as well as an excuse for their utter
incompetence in running the affairs of Iran. That is why they will
not end their enmity with the west.
97% of Iranians voted for Trita (only 96% for Khamenei)
by AMIR1973 on Fri Jan 27, 2012 02:47 PM PST
Mola Nasreddin (writing under his new name of iraj khan) is definitely a fan of the Rahbar (I mean Trita, not Seyyed Ali). Enough said.
Mr Parsi
by iraj khan on Fri Jan 27, 2012 02:32 PM PST
is Against a War with Iran.
According to the latest survey,
%97 of Iranian Americans also
are Against the War with Iran.
IRAJI KHAN
by afshinazad on Fri Jan 27, 2012 01:26 PM PST
Do you have evidence that trita Parsi representing 97% person of Iranian American? Or 97% of few of his followers which are not more than 60 people.
It is shameful to defend someone who is representing fascism.
Poor Trita!
by G. Rahmanian on Fri Jan 27, 2012 01:15 PM PST
Look who’s defending him!
which do you choose
by iraj khan on Fri Jan 27, 2012 02:25 PM PST
to have a democratic,
civilized approach
while expressing one’s viewpoints?
This one who disagrees with Mr Parsi and says:
“someone who doesn’t give a shit about our people and our country, he is like one whore doesn’t care who is f***king with, what he sees dollar sign nothing else.”
Or
Mr Parsi’s approach who expresses his opinion
respectfully, peacefully and elequently?
Mr President, speaking on behalf of the %97 pro-diplomacy Iranian Americans, it is time for more diplomacy not less — even if that means offending a powerful lobby that is hell-bent for war.
Faramarz Jaan:
by G. Rahmanian on Fri Jan 27, 2012 12:06 PM PST
IR officials might do anything at this point to save their tyrannical rule. They cannot be trusted.
Even if they allowed IAEA inspectors to do their job, it would only mean IR is buying time to achieve its goal of producing WMDs.
Iranianians must call for and work towards IR’s downfall at all times.
TRITA FEELING LEFT OUT
by afshinazad on Fri Jan 27, 2012 11:16 AM PST
Trita is someone who doesn’t give a shit about our people and our country, he is like one whore doesn’t care who is f***king with, what he sees dollar sign nothing else, we could make all kind remarks and we could challenge each other, but we never understand what we trying to do, Trita Parsi is not our problem he is only mouth piece of regime, our problem is Islamic Regime which keep destroying our culture and economy and country.
We should stop following same bullshit and for once for all, we should understand what is important to us: is it political party? Is it person or the persons? What is most important for us is our country (Iran) and only country (Iran), rest of things are nothing but an excuse for our shortcoming, period.
It is a real shame….
by Roozbeh_Gilani on Fri Jan 27, 2012 11:16 AM PST
That the old, tired lobbying attempts of the west residing Islamist regime lackeys – this time in form of a book addressed to US government- get so much time and attention on this site, whilst the desparate messages and letters of the most moderate and reformist minded Iranians, Jailed by the fascist islamist regime, to the ”leader” of the islamist thieves, murderers and terrorists, ali khamenei are simply ignored….
To me this is a success, at distraction from islamist regime’s crimes against Iranian people, for the fascist islamist regime and it’s west residing lackeys
“Personal business must yield to collective interest.”
We Say
by iraj khan on Fri Jan 27, 2012 10:58 AM PST
“President Obama
Take War off the Table,
and join us as we stand up to the Israeli lobby group AIPAC”
The Grand Bargain cultists are here…..
by AMIR1973 on Fri Jan 27, 2012 10:03 AM PST
It looks like Supreme NIAC Leader Parsi is once again trying to sell his knockoff Grand Bargain wares, and there are no buyers in either the USA or IRI (except for The Students of Trita’s Line on Iranian.com). Will they ever face the fact that their Grand Bargain ain’t gonna happen?
Much of bias
by Veiled Prophet of Khorasan on Fri Jan 27, 2012 10:00 AM PST
Alright I see a lot of bias around here. Yes the person reviewing Parsi may not like him. But it does not mean that he is wrong. I don’t know whether all the allegations about IRI are right but enough of them are right.
The moment they took hostages and refused to release them they declared war. The rest is suffering of innocent people at hands of primarily IRI. These people included Iranian people; American hostages; Lebanese people and on.
I will not make excuses for the shooting down of Iranian jet. It was wrong and condemned by American naval commander David Carlson. But it does not excuse the actions of IRI. One wrong does not make another one right.
Regarding the 1953 coup that is up for debate. I do not consider it a reason for animosity. In fact the more I learn of Dr. Mossadegh the happier I am to not have lived under his rule. He pulled a coupe; so did the other side; then he lost.
Now if you really want to beat up on USA then blame them for WWII. The invasion of Iran and removal of Reza Shah. But we might as well thank them for kicking Russia out of northern Iran.
It is a long history and something has to stop.
Right now is a good time for IRI to go!
Pragmatism dictates we realize who has power and deal with it. America has power and so do Mollahs. I rather deal with America as evident by where I live. Anyone disagreeing please tell me.
Dr. Mohandess: bebin hala, omadi o nasazi…
by Bavafa on Fri Jan 27, 2012 09:40 AM PST
Nadashtim ro man bayad begam 
When did I “disdain or portray as total insanity” the capitalism? Lotfan harf dahan ma nazrid, khob nist bekhosos baraye yek Aghaye Doctor VA Mohandess
I merely pointed out that the US does the same act, only promoting different ideas. Now, you and I may think those ideas are correct but the interference in other nations are essentially the same as Khomenie’s export of the revolution.
Going back to the Provoking theme, I submitted to you that such acts do not justify the attack, it is not just my personal feeling and interpretation, it is the international law and as such Iraq was found guilty of an illegal invasion of Iran. Now, lets go and re-write the international law just to show our disdain and hate for the IRI.
‘Hambastegi’ is the main key to victory
Mehrdad
Dr. Mohandes
by Faramarz on Fri Jan 27, 2012 08:50 AM PST
You are a gentleman and a scholar! And a very patient one as well.
This discussion is going nowhere, but we gave it our best shot.
This week IAEA will be in Iran to do some serious inspection. If this Regime is really interested in cooperating with the world, it will open its kimono and let the world see what it has.
My sense tells me that they will not and then we will have another blog by Trita defending the Regime and naming the usual suspects or as Yogi Berra said, “It is déjà vu all over again.”
Ostad Mehrdad
by Dr. Mohandes on Fri Jan 27, 2012 08:36 AM PST
Avalandesh ke… Y nadadi… Nadashteema!:))
Dovomandesh:
I don’t think i missed or even remotely made an attempt to dismiss anything, in fact i think i hit the nail right on the head, namely supporting Faramarz’s assertion that Iran was the major provoking force behind many of the major conflicts leading up to the war. They indeed proved that by taking action and sending aid to Hammas and HB! So if that is not putting their money where their mouth is, i don’t know what is.
Also, I hate to break this you, But the same capitalism and “revolution” that you so disdain and portray as total insanity and a criminal act, is what has brought prosperity and fortune tomany countries around the planet and your own self in jooo, ess, AA! so what is there to complain about?
So, indeed i really would not Justify any form of attack on USA for any reason whatsoever. I would, instead thank them and show some sense of gratitude for teaching me and so many other who happened to be “WILLING” to learn, how to fish and big ones too!
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A Single Roll of the DiceObama’s Diplomacy with Iran
List of errata from the first printing. Trita Parsi, a Middle East foreign policy expert with extensive Capitol Hill and United Nations experience, interviewed 70 high-ranking officials from the U.S., Iran, Europe, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Brazil—including the top American and Iranian negotiators—for this book. Parsi uncovers the previously unknown story of American and Iranian negotiations during Obama’s early years as president, the calculations behind the two nations’ dealings, and the real reasons for their current stalemate. Contrary to prevailing opinion, Parsi contends that diplomacy has not been fully tried. For various reasons, Obama’s diplomacy ended up being a single roll of the dice. It had to work either immediately—or not at all. Persistence and perseverance are keys to any negotiation. Neither Iran nor the U.S. had them in 2009. Trita Parsi is president of the National Iranian American Council and a former Public Policy Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. In 2010 he received the Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order, and he is frequently consulted by Western and Asian governments on foreign policy matters. He lives in McLean, VA. OTHER TITLES BY THIS AUTHOR
TITLES IN RELATED CATEGORIES
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| …and I am Sid Harth@sidileak.com | |
| © 2011 YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS |
