Negotiating with Iran.

• Author: Jones, David T.
• Position: Book review

Negotiating with Iran

Review by David Jones

Negotiating with Iran: Wrestling the Ghosts of History, John W. Limbert, United States Institute of Peace Press, Washington, D.C., 2009, ISBN-13: 978-1601270436,215pp., $25

Iran has succeeded Russia as the illustration of Winston Churchill famous observation, "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma." For over 30 years, since the 444 days of "America held hostage" featuring our captive diplomats in Tehran in 1979-80, the United States (and much of the rest of the world) has groped to find mechanisms to understand and negotiate productively with the Iranian revolutionary government. To date, it has been a frustrating and futile experience but one that, since the Iranian government appears to be moving steadily toward obtaining nuclear weapons capability, has increasing urgency.

And there may be no American better positioned than Ambassador John Limbert to dissect the Iranian corpus. Limbert's pre-Foreign Service career included a Harvard Ph. D. in Middle Eastern studies, instructing in Iranian schools, and, most poignantly, as a captive in-the-Embassy experience as a hostage in 1979-80. A Farsi speaker, Limbert had retired from the Foreign Service and had written Negotiating with Iran immediately prior to being recalled by the current administration to act as Near East's Deputy Assistant Secretary for Iranian affairs. Regardless of the result of future United States negotiating efforts with Iran, any failure cannot be attributed to lack of experienced leadership.

Negotiating with Iran opens with a chapter addressing Iranian historical/cultural constants that attempts to provide a template for the confusing and often apparently contradictory Iranian attitudes. Such background is particularly useful for a general reader--even if Limbert emphasizes that knowing a great deal about Iranian culture/history will not necessarily help understand why they have taken a particular negotiating position. It continues with four case studies of Iranian negotiating experience and concludes with two chapters: one outlines 14 principles for negotiating with Iran and the final chapter addresses "mutual myth-perceptions." Casual readers might prefer to skip the case studies, which can be opaque.

The core of the book, however, is the series of case studies: the Azerbaijan crisis of 1945-47; the oil nationalization crisis of 1951-53; the Embassy hostage crisis of 1979-81; and the effort to free Lebanon hostages.

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