The Pivot to Tehran
For more than four years, the Obama administration has accused Iran of being a chief instigator of Syria’s bloody conflict and has rebuffed persistent appeals by the U.N.’s top peacemakers, who maintained that any durable political settlement would be unthinkable without granting the Islamic Republic a seat at the table. The price of a ticket to peace talks, the State Department long insisted, was an unequivocal commitment from Tehran to endorse a U.N.-brokered peace settlement resulting in a political transition and the departure of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad from power.
“The Pivot to Tehran,” Foreign Policy, October 29, 2015.
