Voices of the Middle East on 03/09/12

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Produced by: 
KBOO
Air date: 
Fri, 03/09/2012 - 9:00am to 10:00am
Trita Parsi on U.S. Policy on Iran and the AIPAC conference and Tina Foster on the Child Foundation

Trita Parsi with National Iranian American Council about President Obama's Iran Policy and AIPAC conference this week.  He is author of the book "A Single Roll of the Dice, Obama's Diplomacy with Iran." 

Have the diplomatic efforts of the Obama administration toward Iran failed? Was the Bush administration's emphasis on military intervention, refusal to negotiate, and pursuit of regime change a better approach? How can the United States best address the ongoing turmoil in Tehran? This book provides a definitive and comprehensive analysis of the Obama administration's early diplomatic outreach to Iran and discusses the best way to move toward more positive relations between the two discordant states.

Trita Parsi, a Middle East foreign policy expert with extensive Capitol Hill and United Nations experience, interviewed 70 high-ranking officials from the U.S., Iran, Europe, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Brazil—including the top American and Iranian negotiators—for this book. Parsi uncovers the previously unknown story of American and Iranian negotiations during Obama's early years as president, the calculations behind the two nations' dealings, and the real reasons for their current stalemate. Contrary to prevailing opinion, Parsi contends that diplomacy has not been fully tried. For various reasons, Obama's diplomacy ended up being a single roll of the dice. It had to work either immediately—or not at all. Persistence and perseverance are keys to any negotiation. Neither Iran nor the U.S. had them in 2009.

“With the eye of a Washington insider, Trita Parsi assembles all the pieces of this complex puzzle in an original and persuasive way. I am aware of no one who has subjected the Obama administration’s policy on Iran to this kind of sustained scrutiny. Parsi displays a nuanced understanding of the historical context and an exceptionally fine-tuned appreciation for the political conditions and vulnerabilities of both Iran and the United States.”—Gary Sick, Columbia School of International and Public Affairs


The second part of VOME is an interview with Tina Foster the attorney with Child Foundation, a charity organization registered in Portland that was under investigation by US Government for money transfer to Iran, this case was closed this week with most of the accusation being rejected by US Judge overseeing the court.  The founder of Child Foundation, Dr. Mehrdad Yasrebi was sentenced to one year probation and moving restrictions from home.

 

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