Brookings Press Blog

Now that the June 12 elections are over, how does the U.S. undertake relations with Iran?

Brookings author Suzanne Maloney reveals the key to U.S. strategy toward Iran

Global news headlines read “Iran vote Illegitimate,” “Sanctions on Iran” and “G8 'deplores' Iran poll violence” as the world grapples for better options to address the issues rising in the country. In a conference by United States Institute of Peace, Suzanne Maloney, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and co-author of the book Which Path to Persia?, uncovers solutions that address the right path to resolve the issues in Iran. In the conference titled "Iran's Presidential Elections: Implications for US-Iranian Engagement." Maloney offers her ideas on how the U.S can aid Iranian democracy and development.

Maloney studies Iran, the political economy of the Persian Gulf and Middle East energy policy. A former U.S. State Department policy advisor, she has also counseled private companies on Middle East issues. Maloney has also published books on Iran and its role in the Middle East.

While the title of Which Path to Persia? asks the all-important question, its content tackles the issues and provides options for a new American strategy toward Iran. In the book, Maloney teams up with Ken Pollack, former Director for Persian Gulf affairs at the National Security Council; Dan Byman, Director of Georgetown University’s Center for Peace and Security Studies; Martin Indyk, acting vice president and director of Foreign Policy at Brookings; Michael O’Hanlon, senior author of the Iraq Index; and Bruce Riedel, senior advisor to three U.S. presidents on Middle East issues. Together, this team of experienced scholars offers the most important policy solutions available to the United States with regard to Iran and the Middle East.

- Learn more about Which Path to Persia?

- Read full details of the conference from an article by the National Iranian American Council

Brookings authors Benjamin Wittes and Martin Indyk in the news

Experts from the Brookings Institution give their opinion and get quizzed on global and national events

With the recent departure of American troops form Iraq, the topical Iranian elections and uprisings, and the ongoing Israel-Palestine state struggle, Brookings intellectuals Benjamin Wittes and Martin Indyk analyze Obama’s approach to addressing terrorism and the recent happenings in Iran, Iraq, Israel as well as the crises in the Middle East respectively.

In a Washington Post op-ed writted with Jack Goldsmith, Benjamin Wittes examines past presidencies and suggests the model the Obama administration can take to address new ground rules for a war on terror. His assessment: “Roosevelt's approach, not Bush-era unilateralism, should be President Obama's model.” In his forthcoming book, Legislating the War on Terror: An Agenda for Reform, Wittes addresses the legal issues surrounding the struggle against terrorism.

In an interview with The Jerusalem Post, Martin Indyk, director of the Saban Center for Middle East Policy, expounds on America’s role in Middle East affairs. With years of international experience as ambassador to Israel (April 1995-September 1997 and January 2000-July 2001) and recent books—Which Path to Persia? and Restoring the Balance—under his belt, Indyk offers his expertise on how President Obama can tackle the issues in the region stating, “Obama is determined. He understands that he has to be persistent, and that will require everybody else to change their calculations.”

Martin Indyk is acting vice president and director of Foreign Policy at The Brookings Institution, and Benjamin Wittes is currently a senior fellow of Governance Studies at Brookings and the contributing editor of The Atlantic.

- Learn more about the changing circulations in the Middle East from Indyk's books, Which Path to Persia? Options for a New American Strategy toward Iran and Restoring the Balance: A Middle East Strategy for the Next President

- Read the Indyk's full interview with Ruthie Blum Leibowitz of The Jerusalem Post

- Learn more about America’s struggle against terrorism from the book Legislating the War on Terror

- Read Wittes and Goldsmith's Washington Post op-ed, "Will Obama Follow Bush Or FDR?"

Outrage in Iran: "Which Path to Persia?"

Options for a New American Strategy toward Iran

What do we do about Iran? Over the past thirty years, Washington has produced an unimpressive track record for policies - ranging from undeclared warfare to unilateral concessions - that have largely failed to convince Tehran to drop its support for terrorist groups, the pursuit of a nuclear weapons capability, or its wider efforts to overturn the regional status quo. Now the world watches as protests continue to heat up over the apparently rigged elections that have given hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad an overwhelming victory over reformist Mir Hossein Moussavi.

Available in July, Which Path to Persia? Options for a New American Strategy toward Iran, objectively presents the most important policy options available to the United States in crafting a new strategy toward Iran, including: diplomacy, military, regime change, and containment. The distinguished group of authors, all senior fellows with the Saban Center at Brookings, points out that no one strategy is ideal and that all involve heavy costs, significant risks, and potentially painful tradeoffs.

- Learn more about Which Path to Persia?