Human Rights, Negotiations and Regime Change in Iran

The decision to accept Iran’s proposal for negotiations (see our previous post) has rekindled debate about how the U.S. should be engaging Iran.  J.E. Dyer with Commentary Magazine aruges that Iran is using the negotations to regain political initiative globally and at home.  Trita Parsi, head of the National Iranian American Council, believes that while many diplomats frustated with Iran’s broad response to the P5+1 call for nuclear talks, this is an opportunity to engage Iran on other important issues as Tehran attempts to re-affirm its role in the region.  Mr. Parsi has also decried the United Nation’s high commissioner on human right’s upcoming speech on the Iran situation because it contains “no mention of government-sponsored violence, repression, show trials, who is responsible for those ‘towering constraints.’”

Abdolkarim Soroush, a noted Iranian intellectual, has written an open letter to Ayatollah Khamenei criticizing the leader and predicting the downfall of the regime (h/t niacINsight).  At the same time, Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri, a former confident of Ayatollah Khomenei, has issued one of the harshest statements from a cleric decrying the “military regime” into which the Iranian leadership has devolved.

John Hannah has published an article in Foreign Policy and at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy suggesting that the Iranian protests has brought regime change back onto the table of posibilities and that the Obama administration should actively support reformists by making it political impossible for President Ahmadenijad to arrest reform leaders.