U.S. and Iran: To deal or not to deal

In light of Iran’s recent political upheaval and violence, some advocates for engaging Iran question whether to wait.  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a major foreign policy speech the U.S. remained committed to engagement, but Carnegie Endowment for International Peace fellow Karim Sadjadpour, a Ploughshares grantee who has also advocated engagement, said he was reconsidering past positions. However, Trita Parsi of the Ploughshares-funded National Iranian American Council said, "I still think that engagement is the policy to pursue, but I don't think we have to rush into it.”

"What you want to avoid doing is have engagement in a manner that can tilt the balance in either direction when it comes to the internal political situation in Iran," he said. "That, in my view, means that broad diplomatic engagement has to wait a little while. If we are going wait for the dust to settle, as [U.S. President Barack Obama] has said, then we should wait for the dust to settle," Parsi said, noting, "The opposition has not given up."