Interviews

Former Iranian diplomat Seyed Hossein Mousavian on Iran’s growing influence (Video)

Seyed Hossein Mousavian, a former top diplomat of Iran says, “The U.S. had the wrong assessment about the status of the Iraqi army before departing Iraq. The U.S. spent billions of dollars to create a new army, but it failed as we see today, this is the failure of U.S. policy.” CCTV’s Asieh Namdar reports.

“We need a collective cooperation between regional powers and international powers to fight this type of terror, which to my understanding the most dangerous version of terrorism in the history of mankind.” Says former Iranian diplomat Seyed Hossein Mousavian speaking on the dangerous and fast-moving advance of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants, who’ve seized large sections of northern and western Iraq in the past three weeks. The militants have threatened to march on to Baghdad.

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“Former Iranian diplomat Seyed Hossein Mousavian on Iran’s growing influence,” Interview with Hossein Mousavian, Asieh Namdar, CCTV America, July 1, 2014. (Video)

Lectures

Iran and the United States: An Insider’s View on the Failed Past and the Road to Peace (Video)

From Iraq to Syria, from energy to counterterrorism, Iran and the United States share many common interests across the Middle East and ought to put aside their decades of hostility, said author and former Iranian diplomat Seyed Hossein Mousavian.

Speaking at an IPI Distinguished Author Series event on June 25th featuring his book Iran and the United States: An Insider’s View on the Failed Past and the Road to Peace, Mr. Mousavian said that both countries are to blame for their failure to reach a rapprochement after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, but that today’s challenges in the Middle East are a unique opportunity for mending relations.

Mr. Mousavian said that in his book he had tried to explain the Iranian perspective of the relationship, a view that he said has so far been overlooked by the predominantly Western approach to US-Iran relations.

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“Iran and the United States: An Insider’s View on the Failed Past and the Road to Peace,” Presentation at the International Peace Institute (IPI), June 25, 2014.