WASHINGTON—Seyed Hossein Mousavian, Iran’s nuclear spokesman and a member of the Iranian nuclear negotiating team from 2003 to 2005, releases his extraordinary account of Tehran’s nuclear policy and negotiations with the international community.
For over four years, Mousavian operated at the heart of Iran’s power structures before a dramatic fall from grace in which he was arrested and tried for espionage on the orders of President Ahmadinejad. Mousavian, who was subsequently acquitted in two trials, details Iran’s internal deliberations about its nuclear policy—where Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and other leaders wrestled with their internal and external adversaries.
Published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, The Iranian Nuclear Crisis: A Memoir is a first-of-its-kind book that draws on extensive research and intimate firsthand knowledge of Iran’s nuclear policy.
Former U.S. under secretary of state Thomas Pickering calls the book “A fascinating, insightful, and new treatment from the perspective of an intimately involved former Iranian senior official…. For those familiar with the details, there is much new information about the Iran side, its ideas, strategies, disputes, and aims. U.S. experts will have some key questions but will learn much from this extraordinary book.”
The book describes the history of the Iranian nuclear crisis and explains how to bring it to a peaceful resolution. Mousavian analyzes the West’s current options for dealing with Iran—a preemptive military strike, crippling sanctions, espionage and sabotage, or learning to live with an Iranian bomb—and explains why only a comprehensive diplomatic solution can resolve the crisis. He then describes in detail what a nuclear agreement acceptable to both Washington and Tehran might look like.
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Ambassador Seyed Hossein Mousavian is an associate research scholar at Princeton University. He previously served as the Iranian ambassador to Germany (1990–1997), the head of the Foreign Relations Committee of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (1997–2005), the spokesman for Iran's nuclear negotiation team (2003–2005), and foreign policy adviser to the secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council (2005–2007).
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