Political Considerations in the Roxana Saberi Case

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In The Media

Political Considerations in the Roxana Saberi Case

By Karim Sadjadpour

Published on Apr 21, 2009

Source: NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

In a twist to the case of Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called for her rights to be respected, following her eight year sentencing on charges of espionage. The Iranian judiciary chief followed Ahmadinejad's overture by calling for her appeal to be "fairly, accurately and quickly considered." Karim Sadjadpour discusses the inconsistencies of the regime to the Saberi case on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.

He explains that Ahmadinejad is "in a delicate position. [O]n one hand, his most powerful clerical backers believe that it is one of the fundamental pillars of the revolution, and one of central identities of the Islamic republic to retain an adversarial relationship with the United States. On the other hand, it is an election year and two months from now he is up for re-election and he is presiding over a very young population which is overwhelmingly in favor of a normalization of relations with the United States. So I think we are going to continue to see these inconsistencies with Ahmadinejad. One week he is going to denounce the United States, the next week maybe he is going to send more favorable signals. [I] can see a scenario whereby he comes out and pardons her to project this magnanimous image, as he did with the British sailors two years ago."

About the Author

Karim Sadjadpour

Senior Fellow, Middle East Program

Karim Sadjadpour is a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he focuses on Iran and U.S. foreign policy toward the Middle East.

Recent Work

Q&A
What’s Keeping the Iranian Regime in Power—for Now
- Aaron David Miller, Karim Sadjadpour, Robin Wright
Q&A
How Washington and Tehran Are Assessing Their Next Steps
- Aaron David Miller, David Petraeus, Karim Sadjadpour

Political Reform Foreign Policy North America United States Middle East Iran

Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.

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