Setting up for a long-term US-Iran dialogue

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John W. Limbert, Professor of International Affairs, U.S. Naval Academy, talks to CFR/ here

As a mid-level diplomat you were one of the hostages confined for some 444 days between 1979 and 1981 in Tehran. Since then, you have been a strong advocate of the United States and Iran resuming a serious dialogue. Were you surprised by the fairly upbeat reports that have come out of the meetings between the Security Council plus Germany and Iran on Thursday?

Not entirely. I think that by the way the meetings were set up, it was clear that the parties were going in with serious intentions. There was a lot of punditry that said, "Don't expect anything; expect these things to fail." But in general, if you go into a negotiation expecting to fail you will, and I think people went in with some serious intentions on both sides. A lot of the results are on the level of the symbolic, but right now the symbolic is very important......

Where do you think we now stand on the nuclear issue?

The problem is, if you make the nuclear issue and all the technical parts of it the only issue you talk about with the Iranians, you're not going to get anywhere. You're going to fail. Why is that? Because the Iranians have made that issue a matter of right and respect and dignity. This particular enrichment procedure via the Russians and French seems to fall into the category of something that the Iranians can do that will respect their rights. In other words, by doing this the Iranians argue that they have not surrendered any of their rights to have a peaceful nuclear program, and we have not surrendered any of the rights that we have to put controls on the overall enrichment procedure......

(more/ here)

Posted by G, Z, or B at 10:58 AM