Trita Parsi, On US-Iran Relations

Johnathan Masters

POLS 370

April 8, 2012

Trita Parsi, On US-Iran Relations

Professor Trita Parsi, a Professor who wrote A Single Roll of the Dice: Obama Diplomacy With Iran, gave a talk/book tour at the University of Louisville on March 26, 2012, nearly two weeks ago. Trita Parsi did an extension research project where he interviewed many of the players in the US/Iran power struggle, including high ranking officials from Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Brazil, the US and Iran. Professor Parsi discovers the realpolitik calculations between the US and Iran, and sees how there was a chance at some sort of deal or agreement, but due to domestic...

...pressure at home, for both Iran and the US, the “single roll of the dice” resulted in failure. Professor Parsi believes that since Obama has only tried one time, that attempting another time would be productive. He also alludes to the fact that Obama only had 12 months in his first term to figure out a deal with Iran due to Republican obstructionists, and then a year later, with over the top tough talk with regards to Obama having to declare war on Iran. Professor Parsi also believes that a deal can be reached because Obama had given a message to the Muslim community in the world, 12 minutes into his Presidency, that he is willing to work with them through diplomacy, just so long as their leaders would just “unclinch their fist”.

There are many issues that are preventing the US and Iran from coming to an agreement, or to even have a fair situation where both representatives from each country were given a chance at some sort of agreement. There's also hostilities between the two countries. In Iran, America is known as :the Great Satan” (like the “Evil Empire”, as the 40^th US President Ronald Reagan had dubbed the Soviet Union during “the Cold War”, before that imperialistic empire, with many independent states, collapsed in 1989). Obama said something about carrots and sticks and that was mistranslated as Obama calling the Iranians donkeys. Iran has control of the Straight of Hormuz, well, at least it wouldn't take much to blow up an American oil tanker going through it, without Iran's permission. Also, since Iran is nestled in between Iraq and Afghanistan, they've been able to play “King maker” by influencing the electoral politics that is going on in that country.

On the American side, there's many issues that are making negotiations more difficult also. Israel seems to have an iron grip on Obama's foreign policy mentality, and historically, Israel has had undue amount of influence in American foreign policy. Currently, as Newt Gingrinch is telling everybody that covert CIA operations are needed in Iran, and Santorum and Romney both calling for bombing Iran (only Ron Paul, Kentucky's US Senator's father, is right about this issue), they are inflaming a hysterical discourse. McCain is singing “Bomb Bomb Bomb, Bomb Bomb Iran”, and 60% of Fox News viewers, consistent with the 2003 PIPA findings, that Fox News viewers are misinformed about world events, believe that Iran already has Atomic Weapons. Professor Parsi said that there is no psychological resistance for Israel to attack Iran; it's like how Americans felt when Ronald Reagan was bombing Central America. Considering Israelis have no hangups about blowing Iranians up, and the GOP continue to scream at Obama, putting more pressure on him to blow Iran up... plus the President has unlimited Presidential War Powers, inherited from the Bush Administration's consolidation of War Power, so if Obama wanted a War with Iran, he'd get one.

There was a “confidence-building” “swap” deal that the US had agreed to, but Tehran backed out of it. By the time Tehran came to agree with the deal, through a Turkey-Brazilian initiative, this time, the US balked, and Hillary Clinton pretended like she didn't know anything about the deal. Professor Trita Parsi believed that this even though this “roll of the dice” didn't work, that there is hope that the US and Iran can achieve some diplomatic success, since the people of Iran are against War, Obama was elected because of the American's people's rejection of American foreign policy, and also, because coming up on April 13, 2012, which is 5 days from now, the same day Mayor Fischer is going to knock out the Occupy movement from the public park, once and for all, there's supposed to be some high profile summit meeting between the US and Iran, and he was optimistic that something productive could result from that meeting.

I remember an “expert” on TedTV that was applying Game Theory to all the different outcomes that could result with Iran developing nuclear technology, and there was a slim percentage of Iran actually defying the world, and creating THE BOMB. Iran was more likely to use nuclear power for the peaceful reasons, as Iran has been asserting the entire time. After watching that presentation, I was convinced by it, and haven't been worried about Iran ever since. The only way Iran would become a threat would be if the US would go meddling in Iran, or push Iran into a corner, and then Iran has no choice but to attack, and if atomic weapons are used, hello World War 3.