The Release of Roxana Saberi and Its Implications for U.S.-Iran Relations

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In The Media

The Release of Roxana Saberi and Its Implications for U.S.-Iran Relations

At a time when U.S. policy toward Iran is shifting toward a strong push for diplomacy, the U.S. should show patience as it works toward defining a new relationship with the regime.

By Karim Sadjadpour

Published on May 12, 2009

Source: The Diane Rehm Show

The release of Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi ended a four-month imprisonment in Iran following the reduction of an eight-year term on charges of spying for the U.S. At a time when U.S. policy toward Iran is shifting toward a strong push for diplomacy, Karim Sadjadpour explains how these distractions produced by the Iranian regime relate to their push to develop nuclear weapons: "there's two realistic time frames: there's the nuclear timeframe, which is much more urgent for the Unites States and for the Europeans; and there's the realistic political timeframe... this is a relationship which has been adversarial for three decades now since the 1979 revolution and it's unrealistic to think that it is going to be amended or ameliorated in the... urgent time frame that we have for the nuclear issue. So I think we do need to be patient."

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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