Ms Barbara Slavin is one of the best-informed and most rational voices in the United States as regards Iran. When you are faced with "unpleasant" regimes (and there are many of them both in the West and the East), you have two options. Either to demonise, isolate and eventually wage a war against them, or engage in fair and balanced negotiations. If we needed any more proofs that sanctions and wars are not fruitful we should look at the result of Trump's policy of maximum pressure on Iran and a string of wars and regime changes in the Middle East over the past few decades. If the West had extended a hand of friendship to Iran under presidents that genuinely wanted to have a dignified relationship with the West, such as former presidents Khatami and Rouhani, Iran would be much closer to the West now instead of turning to Russia and China and with a much better human rights record than is the case under the current extremist president Raisi. We should not make the perfect the enemy of the best.
Ms Barbara Slavin is one of the best-informed and most rational voices in the United States as regards Iran. When you are faced with "unpleasant" regimes (and there are many of them both in the West and the East), you have two options. Either to demonise, isolate and eventually wage a war against them, or engage in fair and balanced negotiations. If we needed any more proofs that sanctions and wars are not fruitful we should look at the result of Trump's policy of maximum pressure on Iran and a string of wars and regime changes in the Middle East over the past few decades. If the West had extended a hand of friendship to Iran under presidents that genuinely wanted to have a dignified relationship with the West, such as former presidents Khatami and Rouhani, Iran would be much closer to the West now instead of turning to Russia and China and with a much better human rights record than is the case under the current extremist president Raisi. We should not make the perfect the enemy of the best.
I couldn’t agree more.