Matthew Yglesias » How to Engage With Iran

Nov 25th, 2008 at 3:43 pm

How to Engage With Iran

Karim Sadjadpour has a fascinating Middle East Progress item on the question of how to do engagement with Iran. His five points:

Build confidence on issues of common interest (rather than, say, opening with discussion of Israel or nuclear weapons).
Understand where power lies (with the Supreme Leader).
Speak softly (rather than boasting about all options being on the table, or issuing threats to obliterate Iran).
Don’t let the spoilers set the tenor.
Maintain an international approach.
Get the Timing Right (i.e., save big steps for after Iran’s June 2009 presidential election).

One thread running through this advice is that for a diplomatic strategy to succeed, the people carrying it out need to be primarily concerned with trying to make it succeed, hoping that the fruits of a breakthrough would provide the political justification for having undertaken the mission. If you go in trying to guard your right flank and “look tough,” it’s going to be hard to follow this advice.

Comments
18

Filed under: Diplomacy, Iran,

18 Responses to “How to Engage With Iran”

Victor Tremblay Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 4:21 pm
I think you mean six points, not five.
GPC Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 5:43 pm
List of “spoilers” is one main short: ISRAEL
fostert Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 5:46 pm
Fascinating? Hardly. This is basically Negotiation 101. These are exactly the basic negotiation tactics anyone would use in any situation. You could apply this to buying a carpet in Istanbul. And you should, those carpet dealers are tough negotiators. Granted, it would be a change to return to these time-honored techniques, but it’s hardly anything new. Although a return to sanity would be kind of refreshing, wouldn’t it?
dbeach Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 6:11 pm
7. Learn to count to five.
SLC Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 7:16 pm
The only thing that will impress the ayatollahs who run Iran is a rain of 15 megaton hydrogen bombs that will eliminate Iran from the face of the earth.
fostert Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 8:05 pm
“Learn to count to five.”

Matt doesn’t seem to have a problem counting to five. It was counting to six that tripped him up.
tomemos Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 8:40 pm
I think it would be good to have a blog where SLC, 24Ahead, and Hector were the only commenters. They could spend all the live-long day saying exactly what everyone knows they’re going to say—about the Middle East, immigration/BHO, and abortion, respectively—so that whenever the rest of us needed a break from all of this discussion we could poke our heads in there.
rea Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
It was counting to six that tripped him up.

Unlike some of the antiMatt commentors here, he doesn’t have that many fingers . . .
Rod Hoffman Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
Matt (I love you, bud) has long been proof that Harvard grads can’t spell. Now he shows they can’t count, either. My State U diploma never looked so good.
Trevor Says:
November 25th, 2008 at 10:52 pm
Advisors Power, Malley, et. al. will have a good chance to persuade Obama that establishing good relations with Iran is in our best interests. Saddled as we’ve been with Apartheid Israel as our parasitic, backstabbing “friend” has been catastrophic, 9/11 merely the tipping point. Certainly, improving our standing with allies depends on scaling back the extent of our support for that evil junta. As Nixon did with Red China, we are on the dawn of a new era of constructive, beneficial American Realpolitik.
Hooman Says:
November 26th, 2008 at 1:30 pm
Dear Mr Yglesias

I find the above poster’s comment advocating violence against my country extremely appalling.

Why do you tolerate hate speech like that?

Regards,
Hooman
N DeWitt Says:
November 26th, 2008 at 8:56 pm
Mr Yglesias,
might you enumerate those issues of common interest?
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Matt Yglesias

How to Engage With Iran

18 Responses to “How to Engage With Iran”

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