Talking with Tehran Has Repeatedly Been Tried and Failed

James Phillips / September 30, 2009

Despite last week’s damning revelations about Iran’s continued duplicity on the nuclear issue, the Obama Administration remains wedded to engaging Iran, which has broken numerous attempts at engagement in the past. Yesterday, Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, responding to criticism of the Obama administration’s plans to start talks with Iran tomorrow in Geneva, defensively argued that the Bush Administration had refused to talk to Iran and stated “It resulted in a whole lot of nothing.” This statement is factually inaccurate. It promotes the misconception that the Bush Administration made no effort to resolve the Iran nuclear issue through negotiations.

In fact, the Bush Administration, as well as prior U.S. administrations, made repeated efforts to approach Iran on a wide range of issues, but have been consistently rebuffed by the Iranian regime. Gibbs should consult Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, who acknowledged as much in his comments last October at the National Defense University when he noted that “Every administration since (the Iranian revolution) has reached out to the Iranians in one way or another and all have failed.”

Past efforts to engage Iran not only have failed but some have ended in disaster (more…)