Iran Outreach Post to be Created in Obama Admin

BY TAYLOR MARSH

It looks like things are about to change dramatically on
the diplomatic front with Iran:

The incoming Obama administration plans to create a new position to coordinate outreach to Iran and is considering a number of senior career diplomats, State Department officials and Iran specialists say. President-elect Barack Obama promised during his campaign to seek dialogue with Iran without preconditions in an effort to persuade Tehran to suspend its uranium enrichment program, but also has pledged to toughen sanctions. [...]

I agree with Ackerman
on the Leveretts. I interviewed Hillary Mann Leverett on my radio show, which was
quite interesting. Check out this op-ed on Iran, which simultaneously illustrates the redacted version compliments of the C.I.A. Flynt Leverett has a terrific piece on Iran from October of this year up at New America Foundation that is also important.

The next U.S. president, whether it is John McCain or Barack Obama, should reorient American policy toward the Islamic Republic of Iran as fundamentally as President Nixon reoriented American policy toward the People’s Republic of China in the early 1970s. Nearly three decades of U.S. policy toward Iran emphasizing diplomatic isolation, escalating economic pressure, and thinly veiled support for regime change have damaged the interests of the United States and its allies in the Middle East. U.S.-Iranian tensions have been a constant source of regional instability and are an increasingly dangerous risk factor for global energy security. As a result of a dysfunctional Iran policy, among other foreign policy blunders, the American position in the region is currently under greater strain than at any point since the end of the Cold War. It is clearly time for a fundamental change of course in the U.S. approach to the Islamic Republic. By fundamental change, we do not mean incremental, step-by-step engagement with Tehran, or simply trying to manage the Iranian challenge in the region more adroitly than the Bush administration has done. Rather, we mean the pursuit of thoroughgoing strategic rapprochement between the two nations. [...]

It’s clear that when HRC creates the post, some career diplomat will get the
station of her or his life, also having the opportunity to turn U.S. – Iranian
relations on its head. What an historic opportunity it will be.