“Because Trump has put the deal in his crosshairs, advocates of diplomatic engagement with the West in Iran are being discredited. If he goes ahead with his stated wish to undo it, a domestic consensus will form not to trust, negotiate or cooperate with the United States on any future issue.”
“What to expect if Trump undoes the Iran nuclear deal,” Seyed Hossein Mousavian, The Los Angeles Times, September 14, 2017.
“Iranians just overwhelmingly voted to keep President Hassan Rouhani in power after a fiercely competitive and divisive election campaign. But while the president’s re-election was hailed by moderates as a rejection of isolation and populism, it is only the beginning of a much larger battle for the centrist leader ― one that will require Rouhani to make good on past promises while finding a way to compromise with those whom he now needs on his side.”
“Winning Iran’s Election Is Just The Beginning Of Rouhani’s Political Struggles,” The Huffington Post, Seyed Hossein Mousavian, May 22, 2017.
“Trump has the option of engaging Iran and bringing stability to a region that has not known it for decades. While distrust between the two countries remains thick in the aftermath of the nuclear deal, the key to broader cooperation is to abandon self-defeating aspirations for regime change and engage in diplomacy based on mutual respect, shared interests and non-interference in each other’s political affairs.”
“What Trump Needs To Know About Iran,” Seyed Hossein Mousavian, The Huffington Post, January 6, 2017.
In “Talk to Tehran, but Talk Tough” (Op-Ed, Jan. 19), Nicholas Burns, a former under secretary of state, calls for President Obama and whoever succeeds him to find a “right balance” on Iran that straddles “between cooperation on nuclear issues and containment of Iranian aggression.” The surefire way to ensure that Iran abandons its obligations under the deal is to return to a policy of coercion.
“Dealing With Iran: The Key Word Is ‘Respect,” Hossein Mousavian, New York Times, January 26, 2016.
The global powers that met two times in Vienna for landmark discussions on ending the war in Syria may meet again in New York this month while several hurdles remain. In a March 2015 op-ed for the National Interest, I proposed a six step plan with 10 principles to resolve the Syrian conflict. During the past two years, I have sought to promote this proposal in numerous international seminars and conferences.
“To Solve the Syria Crisis, We Need to Overcome These Three Obstacles,” Hossein Mousavian, The Huffington Post, December 7, 2015.
Ayatollah Khamenei first permitted direct negotiations between Iran and the United States on the nuclear issue after US President Barack Obama came into office, during the presidency of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Direct talks were held first in Vienna in 2009 and continued in Muscat in 2012. With the election of Rouhani in June 2013, a more professional nuclear negotiating team was appointed and a more favorable international political climate for serious negotiations was created. To accommodate a nuclear deal, Ayatollah Khamenei gave permission again for direct talks between Iran and United States, allowing for the bilateral negotiations that proved to be the critical prerequisite to the nuclear deal to eventually be reached.
Indeed, it is of crucial importance to note that the Rouhani administration would not have been able to reach and uphold the nuclear deal without the support of Ayatollah Khamenei. Hard-line domestic opponents of Rouhani would have certainly killed the deal if not for the supreme leader’s explicit support for the administration and nuclear negotiators. When the parliament was debating the nuclear deal these past several months, I was in Iran and witnessed firsthand the bellicose nature of the opposition. The rhetoric reached such a level of hostility that at one point a hard-line parliament member menaced Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, threatening to put him and Iran’s Atomic Energy Organization head Ali Akbar Salehi in the “heart” of Iran’s plutonium reactor and “bury” them “in cement.”
“Will Iran’s nuclear diplomacy lead to regional solutions?” Hossein Mousavian, Al Monitor, November 3, 2015.
“The potential fallback after open letter from US Senators to Tehran,” interview with Hossein Mousavian, CCTV America, March 12, 2015. (Video)
“Full Interview with Amb. Seyed Hossein Mousavian About GOP Iran Letter,” interview with Hossein Mousavian, Ari Rabin-Havt, Sirius XM Radio, March 11, 2015. (Audio)
“Iranian perspective on the current regional issues and its implications for Arab and U.S. Policies,” Presentation at the National Council on U.S.-Arab Relations, October 29, 2014. (Video)
