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As thousands of Iranians continue to take to the streets in protest, President Obama is presented with an opportunity to help support transformational democratic change within Iran.
The Obama administration is trying to reconcile its continuing diplomacy with the Iranian regime and its desire to show support and solidarity for the demands of the Iranian people.
Efforts to combat terrorism largely defined the global security agenda during the past decade, when small terrorist groups, with as few as three hundred active members, were able to inflict enormous amounts of damage on regional, national, and international scales.
While the Iranian public is still divided in its opinion on the regime, the high turnout at anti-government protests suggests that a majority, if not a vast majority, of people in Iran want to see a different type of government in Tehran.
Protests in Iran over the past few days have shown the breadth, determination, and sustainability of the opposition movement, with demonstrations not only in Tehran but throughout the country.
It remains to be seen how the Obama administration’s efforts at engagement with Iran will affect the domestic situation, as tensions grow between the opposition leadership’s calls for reform and the movement’s younger members, who are looking for a more fundamental change.
A year of attempts by U.S. officials to engage with Iran has not yet yielded any change in Iran’s nuclear position, but it has succeeded in demonstrating to both the Iranian people and the international community that the problem lies in Tehran, not in Washington.
International threats and sanctions unify Iranians behind an unloved regime while inducements threaten the regime's foundations, which are built on hostility to the world, embattlement, and "resistance."
Obama's Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in Oslo signaled a tougher, less forgiving, and more quintessentially American approach to foreign policy.
Engagement with Iran over its nuclear problem has become increasingly complicated; not only has the regime backed away from previous commitments, but internal political developments require the Obama administration to call for engagement without undermining the opposition.
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