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Special Report 199 January 2008

Special Report

The views expressed in this report do not necessarily 

reflect the views of the United States Institute of Peace, 

which does not advocate specific policy positions .

Contents 

Introduction 2

Fifteen Points to Remember 4

No Sure Thing 14

About the Report

The United States Institute of Peace is sponsoring a book-length 

study of Iranian negotiating style as part of the Institute’s ongoing 

Cross-Cultural Negotiation Project. This project develops and transmits 

useful knowledge for negotiating with foreign counterparts on matters 

affecting the prevention and management of international conflicts. 

Specifically, the project is designed to help professional negotiators 

better understand the negotiating behavior of their counterparts and 

thereby achieve mutually satisfactory political solutions to issues that 

might otherwise escalate into confrontation. 

This report is a part of that project. The result of interviews with 

academics and practitioners and of historical research, it is intended 

as a brief “how to” guide for American negotiators dealing with 

counterparts from the Islamic Republic of Iran.

The need for guidance such as this report offers is acute. Iran and 

the United States have been in a confrontation—a state of “no war, 

no peace”—since 1979. There have been no diplomatic relations 

between the two countries since April 1980, and what contacts have 

occurred have usually been unofficial or covert or have had very 

limited agendas. 

The writer of the report is Ambassador (Ret.) John W. Limbert, 

who left the Foreign Service in 2006 and is currently Distinguished 

Professor of International Affairs at the U.S. Naval Academy. The 

author has over forty years of experience in Iranian affairs, including 

teaching in Iranian universities and secondary schools and earning 

a PhD in History and Middle Eastern Studies from Harvard University. 

He was a political officer at the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979 and 

became one of the hostages held at that embassy from November 

1979 to January 1981. His publications include Iran: At War with 

History (Westview Press, 1987) and Shiraz in the Age of Hafez 

(University of Washington Press, 2005).

John W. Limbert

Negotiating with the 

Islamic Republic of Iran

Raising the Chances for Success—Fifteen Points 

to Remember

Summary

•	 Both Iranian and American sides come to the negotiating table burdened with years 

of accumulated grievances and suspicions. Their recent history has led both sides to 

assume the worst about the other and to see it as infinitely devious, hostile, and 

duplicitous. Yet, while talking to Iran may sometimes be difficult and unpleasant, it 

is also worth doing and may help both sides to find common interests lurking behind 

walls of hostility and distrust. 

•	 To enhance the prospects of a fruitful encounter, American officials should pay 

attention to a variety of traits that their Iranian counterparts are likely to demonstrate. Although some of these characteristics might make productive negotiation 

difficult, American negotiators should remain patient and focused on the issues 

under discussion.

•	 Iranian negotiators may base their arguments on an abstract ideal of “justice” 

instead of defined legal obligations. This distrust of legalistic argument springs 

from the belief held by many Iranians that the great powers have long manipulated 

international law and the international system to take advantage of weaker countries. 

The American negotiator should, therefore, look for unambiguous, mutually agreeable 

criteria that both define ideals of justice and avoid legal jargon.

•	 The combination of Iran’s great imperial past and its weakness in the last three 

hundred years has created a gap between rhetoric and reality. Yet, while history certainly matters to Iranians, they will on occasion bury the past to reach an agreement, 

especially if that agreement serves a larger interest.

•	 There are parallel governing structures within the Islamic Republic, making it difficult but also important for American negotiators to be sure they are talking to the 

United States Institute of Peace www.usip.org
right people. The factionalization of the Iranian political system can make Iranian 

negotiators reluctant to reach an agreement lest they become vulnerable to charges 

of “selling out” to foreigners. 

•	 Grand gestures may overshadow the substance of issues under negotiation, and American negotiators need to be able to distinguish substance from political theater.

•	 Iranians feel that they have often been treated as fools in political contacts, and 

they will be very sensitive to American attitudes. If they sense that the American side 

considers them irrational and unreasonable, they are likely to react in exactly that way. 

American negotiators should thus treat their Iranian counterparts with professional 

respect and not lecture them on what is in Iran’s national interest. 

•	 The Islamic Republic believes itself surrounded by hostile American, Arab, Turkish, and 

Sunni forces, all determined to bring about its downfall. Conspiracy theories are very 

popular, and events such as the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the Iran-Iraq War are 

often considered the outcome of great power plots. 

•	 If an American negotiator senses that that the Iranians are overplaying a hand and 

pushing a momentary advantage beyond its value, the best response is to ask, “On 

what basis are you asking for that?” and to insist that the Iranian side come up with 

some understandable basis for its position. Mediation or arbitration by an impartial 

body can sometimes help to counter what appear to be unreasonable demands. 

•	 What works in any negotiation—preparation, knowing each side’s best alternative to a 

negotiated agreement (BATNA), building relationships, and understanding underlying 

interests—will work in negotiations with Iranians. What can undermine any negotiation—such as ill-advised public statements—can also compromise negotiations with 

Iranians.

Introduction

The Baghdad meetings between Ambassadors Ryan Crocker and Hassan Kazemi-Qomi in 

May and July of 2007 marked the first official bilateral American-Iranian contacts since 

relations were formally broken during the U.S. embassy hostage crisis in April 1980. Previous contacts, productive or not, had been indirect, clandestine, or part of some multilateral framework. Earlier attempts to establish official dialogue had foundered on pervading 

suspicions and the view that “now is not the time” and “if they want to talk, then they 

must be up to something.”

Like adolescents dealing with a prom invitation, when one side came forward, the 

other pulled back. In 1998–99, for example, Tehran—politically hobbled by internal 

dispute—rejected Secretary of State Madeleine Albright’s offer to discuss, without preconditions, a “roadmap to better relations.” In 2003, the United States ignored an Iranian 

proposal—transmitted through the Swiss embassy in Tehran—to open discussions on all 

outstanding issues, including a broader Middle East settlement. It is ironic that the United 

States ignored such an approach after it had insisted, in the aftermath of the 1986 IranContra fiasco, that it would talk to Iran only through the “official” channel of the Swiss 

protecting power. By all accounts, that 2003 decision came from the illusory euphoria of 

an easy military victory in Iraq and the view, popular with some in Washington at the time, 

that “real men go to Tehran [in tanks].” 

Talking to Iran may be difficult and perhaps unpleasant. There are, however, some 

points that are worth remembering and that might help avoid some of the missteps that 

have doomed previous attempts to hold conversations. Many of these points will be obvious to those with experience in negotiation and to those who have dealt with the Middle 

East in general and Iran in particular. In the case of Iran, however, the U.S. government 

has lost its cadre of expertise. Through the 1980s and 1990s it did not train Persian speakAbout the Institute

The United States Institute of Peace is an independent, 

non-partisan institution established and funded by Congress. 

Its goals are to help prevent and resolve violent conflicts, 

promote post-conflict peacebuilding, and increase conflictmanagement tools, capacity, and intellectual capital worldwide. The Institute does this by empowering others with 

knowledge, skills, and resources, as well as by its direct 

involvement in conflict zones around the globe.

Board of Directors

J. Robinson West (Chair), Chairman, PFC Energy, Washington, 

D.C. • María Otero (Vice Chairman), President, ACCION International, Boston, Mass. • Holly J. Burkhalter, Vice President, 

Government Affairs, International Justice Mission, Washington, D.C. • Anne H. Cahn, Former Scholar in Residence, 

American University, Washington, D.C. • Chester A. Crocker, 

James R. Schlesinger Professor of Strategic Studies, School of 

Foreign Service, Georgetown University, Washington, D.C. 

• Laurie S. Fulton, Partner, Williams and Connolly, Washington, D.C. • Charles Horner, Senior Fellow, Hudson Institute, 

Washington, D.C. • Kathleen Martinez, Executive Director, 

World Institute on Disability • George E. Moose, Adjunct 

Professor of Practice, The George Washington University, Washington, D.C. • Jeremy A. Rabkin, Professor of Law, George 

Mason University, Fairfax, Va. • Ron Silver, Actor, Producer, 

Director, Primparous Productions, Inc. • Judy Van Rest, 

Executive Vice President, International Republican Institute, 

Washington, D.C. 

Members ex officio

Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State • Robert M. Gates,

Secretary of Defense • Richard H. Solomon, President, United 

States Institute of Peace (nonvoting) • Frances C. Wilson,

Lieutenant General, U.S. Marine Corps; President, National 

Defense University.

Talking to Iran may be difficult 

and perhaps unpleasant.
ers, and eventually those with language and country experience aged and retired, leaving 

a gap that, with the best will in the world, will take at least a decade to fill. Ambassador 

Crocker, for example, must be among the last active-duty American diplomats who served 

in Iran. 

Creating such a well-prepared cadre will take time. Training someone to a level of 

professional speaking and reading proficiency in Persian—a process that experts believe 

requires at least nine months of full-time study—is just the beginning of the process. 

Understanding nuances, historical references, cultural and class views, and other subtleties will take much longer, ideally through personal immersion in an Iranian social context. Yet without at least some understanding of these facets of the Iranian mindset, the 

American negotiator’s task will be much harder.

On the other side, few Iranian counterparts are likely to have much understanding 

of the United States. Iran’s cadre of U.S.-educated technocrats has aged and a new 

generation of Iranians from a different social background has come to occupy key posts. 

Even those Iranians who lived and studied in the United States often did so at a fairly 

advanced age (most were graduate students) and lived—like many American expatriates 

in Iran—in an environment unaffected by and remote from the main currents of American 

life. Although the Islamic Revolution and the subsequent turmoil brought hundreds of 

thousands of Iranians to the United States, there are fewer and fewer people inside Iran 

who have had any direct contact with America and Americans. 

Many in power in Iran today have gained their positions by riding waves of anti-American

sentiment. Many leaders of the Islamic Republic see the power of American popular culture as a direct threat to the austere strictures of the dominant ideology and, as such, a 

threat to the current leaders’ control of the state. Ayatollah Khomeini once said that he 

did not fear America’s ships and armies; America’s most terrifying weapon, he asserted, 

was its popular culture, with its power to mislead Iran’s young people and to turn them 

away from the true path of religion and revolution. The earlier flows of students, tourists, business visitors, and others from Iran to the United States have become a trickle. 

Iranians’ views of the United States are likely to be highly distorted either by the Islamic 

Republic’s official hate machine or by an idealized picture coming from Iranians’ dislike 

for their own government. According to this latter view, “if this government says America 

is the root of all evil, then America must be the source of all that is beneficent.”

Following the suggestions listed below will help but will not guarantee the success of 

a negotiation. Expertise and a few helpful hints by themselves will not always overcome 

the formidable barriers to that success. Festering resentments, perceived grievances, and 

suspicions run deep on both sides, so that negotiations by the most skilled and experienced parties may still fail—or at least not achieve what is hoped for. The key to progress 

is keeping expectations realistic. One or two negotiating sessions are not going to make 

people forget the real or imagined humiliations of the past. For in the near term, the 

American side is no more likely to overlook the wounds of the 1979–81 hostage crisis 

than is the Iranian side likely to put aside the memories of the 1953 CIA-sponsored coup 

against the Mossadegh regime.

Some of the points listed below are basic negotiation techniques and would apply in 

negotiations with almost any state counterpart, not just the Islamic Republic. Such principles, however, deserve special emphasis in the Iranian case, because of the deep and 

mutual mistrust that has existed between the two countries since 1979. In the case of 

Iran, there is no reservoir of goodwill that a negotiator can tap to overcome difficulties 

of process or substance. Since relations were formally broken in 1980, there has been an 

almost complete lack of official, bilateral contact. That estrangement has deprived Americans of face-to-face negotiating experience and has left the field mostly to the speculators, the professional pundits, and those pursuing personal or political agendas. Lacking 

firsthand knowledge and serious analysis, we are often left with distorted stereotypes 

about Iranians’ basic “irrationality and egoism” and with sweeping statements such as 

“Iranians hate negotiations.”1

The American side is no more 

likely to overlook the wounds 

of the 1979–81 hostage crisis 

than is the Iranian side likely 

to put aside the memories of 

the 1953 CIA-sponsored coup 

against the Mossadegh regime.
Of course, today the setting for American-Iranian negotiations is unpromising and the 

chances of success are uncertain. Yet if there is mutual interest in coming to the table—as 

there was in 2001–02 about Afghanistan and there should be today about Iraq—then the 

recommendations below may just raise the chances of a productive negotiating encounter 

from none to at least slim.

Fifteen Points to Remember

1. Negotiating with Iran—hard as it may be—is worth doing. After twenty-eight years 

of uninterrupted Iranian-American hostility, some American observers argue that the Iranian regime is so evil, so irrational, and so mendacious that there is nothing to gain from 

negotiations except more sterile rhetoric, absurd accusations, and blatant untruths. In this 

view, if the Islamic Republic today is, in some ways, the equivalent of Nazi Germany in 

1938, then negotiating with such a regime ignores its true nature and will only give it a 

legitimacy it does not deserve.

2 These observers claim that this member of the axis of evil 

is a worthy target only for regime change, or that, at a minimum, Iran must “change its 

behavior”—that is, do all that we demand of it—before any kind of discourse can begin. 

In this analysis, the regime in Tehran is beyond the pale. It is so brutal, benighted, and 

paranoid that there is no point in opening a dialogue unless its only subject is the terms 

of Iran’s surrender.

The problem with this Manichean view—regarding Iran as a manifestation of pure 

evil—is that it is likely to become a self-fulfilling prophecy. When we approach the Iranians (or any counterpart in a negotiation) as though they are the malevolent beings 

described above, they will quickly perceive how we look at them and adapt their tactics 

accordingly. Approach Iranians as irrational, dissimulating cheats, and they are quite 

likely to fulfill those expectations. This dark view of Iran and Iranians also ignores the 

possibility that negotiating could be one method of changing what has been a twentyeight-year destructive U.S.-Iranian relationship of mutual grievance, hostility, and 

suspicion into something more productive. During that period, mutual recrimination, 

name-calling, finger-pointing, posturing, and sermonizing have had few results. The 

Islamic Republic still exists, remains hostile and suspicious, and has recently reminded 

us of its antagonism by the high-profile arrests of Iranian-Americans whose mission was 

to encourage Iranian-American dialogue and scholarly research. The United States, for 

its part, has imposed more and more sanctions, encouraged others to do likewise, and 

issued barely veiled threats of military action.

The point is that the United States should be talking to the Islamic Republic not 

because doing so is easy or even likely to produce immediate and positive results, but 

because both sides might find significant common interests in doing so. Talking, hard and 

disagreeable as it might be, is likely to be more productive than continuing twenty-eight 

years of noisy and sometimes violent confrontation. We should have no illusions. Discussions with the Islamic Republic are unlikely to produce in the short run the kind of productive outcomes we might wish for. Iran is not going to “change its behavior” immediately 

and stop all of its misdeeds in the areas of terrorism, Middle East peace, human rights, 

and nuclear development. Yet serious negotiations may elicit areas of common interest 

that lurk behind walls of hostility and distrust.

2. Establish objective criteria free of legalisms. Closely reasoned legal arguments may 

have their place in a negotiation, but for the most part they will not impress the Iranian 

side. This feature of Iranian negotiating style long predates the Islamic Republic. In February 1946, for example, Iranian Prime Minister Ahmad Qavam, meeting with Stalin on 

the sensitive issue of Soviet military units remaining on Iranian soil after World War II, 

deliberately avoided arguing the legalisms of the 1921 Soviet-Iranian friendship treaty, 

which gave the USSR the right to intervene in Iran under certain conditions, and referred 

to Soviet withdrawal as a matter of equity and friendship between the two countries. 

Approach Iranians as irrational, 

dissimulating cheats, and they 

are quite likely to fulfill those 

expectations. 
The Islamic Republic has had a contentious relationship with the law and legal issues. 

In its earliest years, the new authorities took drastic steps to eradicate the Europeanbased legal system it had inherited from the Pahlavi era (1925–79) and attempted to 

replace it with something the new rulers believed was in accordance with Shia religious 

law. The new regime also undertook a wholesale purge of judges, lawyers, and prosecutors—especially women—and replaced them with clerics who were supposed to establish 

an “Islamic” and “revolutionary” legal system. The regime also sacked many members of 

the Iranian Foreign Service, who traditionally had brought strong legal qualifications to 

their work.

In such a setting, it is vital—although sometimes difficult—to establish what experts 

call “objective criteria” in a negotiation. The Islamic Republic, particularly in its most revolutionary and ideological moods, has often regarded what others call “international law” 

as a pretext for foreigners to cheat Iranians out of their rights. One expert, writing of “the 

historical distrust Iranians had for Western legalism,” asks rhetorically, “Had treaty after 

treaty not proved that international law was simply a political device to ensure Western 

control?”3 The test of an action, therefore, is not whether it conforms to some abstract 

notion of legality, but whether it can be presented as a victory for Islam and for Iran. 

Such criteria, of course, are subjective and ambiguous, and one group’s victory is often 

presented as another group’s betrayal.

The negotiator, therefore, should look for unambiguous, mutually agreeable standards 

that avoid legal jargon and technicalities. Legal arguments will often carry less weight 

with Iranians than with Americans. For the American side in a transaction, maintaining the integrity of the process—grounded on legal principles—is often crucial. For the 

Iranian side, that process is seen only as a means or an obstacle to achieving an allimportant result. An Iranian visa applicant, for example, will probably have little interest 

in upholding the integrity of American immigration law. He or she will show genuine 

confusion if a visa officer protests indignantly (“You lied to me!”) on discovering that 

the applicant lied.

There is an important distinction here. A lack of interest in points of law may at first 

suggest that the Iranian side is taking an emotional, subjective view of an issue while 

ignoring logic and objective factors. The reality is not so simple. The emotional factors 

may be important, but the true motives of the Iranian side in a negotiation will sometimes be difficult to comprehend. Those motives may include a mixture of the political, 

personal, financial, and ideological. The outsider, lacking clear insight into these motivations, should be wary of taking refuge in the oversimplified and time-honored view of 

Iranians as emotional and incompre­hensible (as opposed to “rational” Westerners). In so 

doing, one risks creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Treated as irrational, the Iranian side 

in a negotiation is likely to become so.

3. The past matters: Be aware of Iran’s historical greatness, its recent weakness, and 

its grievances from decades or centuries earlier. Iranians know well that in pre-Islamic 

times their country was a world power, ruled a large empire, and on several occasions 

defeated even the mighty armies of Rome. The Iranian plateau is covered with reminders 

of Iran’s ancient glory, even if popular memory now associates those pre-Islamic monuments with mythological heroes such as Jamshid and Rostam rather than long-forgotten 

historical kings such as Cyrus and Darius. In more recent times—until the eighteenth 

century—Iran rivaled the neighboring Ottoman and Mogul Empires and could deal with 

the West on equal terms.

Beginning in the 1700s, however, Iran lost its great power status. It progressively 

surrendered territory and influence to outsiders, notably to Britain, Russia, and (later) 

the United States. The nineteenth century saw multiple humiliations for Iran: bankruptcy, 

military defeats, and losses of territory and authority in Afghanistan, Central Asia, and 

Transcaucasia. Foreigners gained control of Iran’s finances and oil resources and even its 

security forces. Iran avoided overt colonial status only because British-Russian rivalry kept 

the country feeble but nominally independent. In the twentieth century, foreign powers 

The test of an action, therefore, is 

not whether it conforms to some 

abstract notion of legality, but 

whether it can be presented as a 

victory for Islam and for Iran. 
formally divided Iran into spheres of influence (in the Anglo-Russian treaty of 1907), 

occupied the country (during both world wars), backed provincial separatist movements 

(in 1945–46), and frustrated Iranians’ attempts to gain control of their own destiny by 

suppressing the Constitutional Movement (in 1906–11) and by overthrowing Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh’s nationalist government (in 1953).

History, or at least some version of it, will be very much alive for Iranian counterparts. 

Iranians, like all of us, are captives of their history. In their case, however, that history 

is a very long and tragic one. What Iranians remember is likely to be some disastrous 

event that in the retelling has grown and transformed itself into near mythology. With 

such memories, suggesting that the Iranian interlocutor “forget the past” or “move on” is 

unlikely to meet with much success or response beyond puzzlement or hostility. 

The Iranian side may never mention history explicitly (unlike Israeli Prime Minister 

Menachem Begin, whose one-hour meetings famously began with thirty minutes of Old 

Testament and twenty minutes of Holocaust, or Yasir Arafat, who loved to dwell on past 

injustices to the Palestinians to the exclusion of anything else). Depending on the Iranian 

negotiator’s cultural orientation, however, one or more of the following events will have 

shaped his approach to the issue under discussion:

•	 the civil wars of early Islamic history, climaxing in the martyrdom of the prophet’s 

grandson, Imam Hossein b. Ali, at Karbala in 680 CE;

•	 the Arab invasion and defeat of Iran’s pre-Islamic Sassanian Empire in the seventh 

century CE;

•	 the constitutional revolution and its failure, 1906–11;

•	 the tripartite Allied (British, Soviet, and American) occupation of Iran, 1941–45;

•	 the foreign-backed separatist movements in Azerbaijan and Kurdistan, 1945–46;

•	 the overthrow of Prime Minister Mossadegh and the restoration of the Shah, 1953;

•	 the Islamic Revolution of 1978–79 and its bloody aftermath, including the Iran-Iraq 

War of 1980–88;

•	 the United States and others siding with Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War, and the downing of an Iranian civilian airliner by the USS Vincennes in July 1988.

Most of these events ended badly for Iranians (or at least for some Iranians) and have 

created a profound sense of national victimization and grievance that can still pollute the 

Iranian political atmosphere. Even where the events, in the view of some individuals, did 

not end badly, the lesson that Iranians often draw from their history is one of “us alone 

against a hostile world.” As a result, Iranian counterparts may come to a negotiation with 

a view of their nation’s history that has too often featured defeat, tragedy, victimization, 

and betrayal. 

Can Iranian negotiators ever bury the past? Of course they can, if doing so serves some 

larger interest. As one observer recently noted, the Iranians, in an effort to mend fences 

with their Arab neighbors, appear willing to overlook the fact that Saudi Arabia and most 

of the Persian Gulf states were strong financial and logistical backers of Saddam Hussein’s 

Iraq throughout the course of the bloody 1980–88 war. The Iranian side could always bring 

up that history again, but for the moment the need to normalize relations with those Arab 

states dictates putting aside (if not forgetting) historical grievances.

4. Choose intermediaries with great care. In any negotiation, and especially in the 

absence of formal American-Iranian diplomatic relations, a trusted and skilled intermediary 

can be very useful. The Algerians—to whom each side could talk without making an apparent concession to the other—played such a positive role in the 1980–81 negotiations 

between the United States and Iran to end the U.S. embassy hostage crisis. 

In contrast to such official, respectable intermediaries, the last twenty-eight years of 

American-Iranian contact have featured numerous self-appointed individuals and groups 

who will act on their own initiative from more questionable motives. As long as there are 

no official bilateral U.S.-Iranian relations, there will be no shortage of persons volunteerThe lesson that Iranians often draw 

from their history is one of “us 

alone against a hostile world.”
ing their services as channels to this or that influential person within the murky Iranian 

political universe. Everything about such persons and their claims, however, should be 

suspect: their contacts, their motives, their veracity, and their ability to deliver.

Such would-be intermediaries, however, know they have an American audience and 

often exploit it skillfully. They can play on the absence of official contact and on the 

known political leanings of their American listeners, tell them what they want to hear, 

and attempt to convince them, for example, that

•	 Iranians are seething with discontent and are ready to make a new revolution with 

outside support (especially financial) and encouragement;

•	 a particular ethnic group (e.g., Kurds or Azeris) or region (e.g., Baluchistan) is ready, 

with outside support, to make trouble for the central government;

•	 most Iranians would welcome American efforts to overthrow the Islamic Republic, 

even by force if necessary;

•	 the leaders of the Islamic Republic are ready to moderate their policies and require 

only a “gesture” from the United States to show support for policies of some (imaginary) moderate Iranian faction.

U.S.-Iranian relations are littered with the wreckage of ill-judged attempts to use such 

intermediaries. The lawyers Christian Bourguet and Hector Villalon were doing a profitable 

business with Iran when they offered their services as intermediaries during the 1979–81 

hostage crisis. Eventually their efforts led nowhere because their Iranian contacts had no 

power beyond the doors of their own offices. The notorious wheeler-dealer Manouchehr 

Ghorbanifarr—teamed up with NSC staffer Oliver North—almost brought down an 

American president (Ronald Reagan) by manipulating and misrepresenting the views of 

all sides during the notorious arms-for-hostages deal of 1985. Despite Ghorbanifarr’s welldocumented shortcomings as an intermediary, some American officials continued to deal 

with him as late as 2002.

Such persons should be dealt with warily, if at all. They can and will drag their American contacts into the middle of Iranian political swamps and use them to gain respectability and further their own political and financial fortunes. We should be especially wary 

if such intermediaries claim disinterested or humanitarian motives and declare, “Of course 

I want nothing for myself. I just want to be of service to both countries.” Any variation 

of the above state­ment is a clear warning to stay away.

5. Talk to the right people. The unique and opaque structure of the Islamic Republic—with duplicating and conflicting authorities in a world of contentious and arcane 

internal politics—can make it very difficult to understand exactly who has authority and 

responsibility to reach agreements in any given area. The conventional wisdom, in dealing 

with the Islamic Republic, is “Everyone is in charge; no one is in charge.” Rarely will the 

other side in any nego­tiation, however, announce that he or she is not authorized to make 

an agreement or does not have the power to carry out a commitment. That unpleasant 

news usually arrives only after one believes s/he has reached a deal.

The tempting explanation for such a breakdown may be “Oriental duplicity,” but the 

reality is that one has probably been negotiating with the wrong people. The American 

negotiator should remember that there are parallel and sometimes competing governing 

structures within the Islamic Republic. There is a “republican” system, with a written 

constitution, a presidency, ministers, a parliament, and popular elections. Such a system 

is familiar to us and resembles, at least in appearance, parliamentary and presidential 

systems in other countries. In this system, titles more or less reflect responsibili­ties, and 

fundamental laws will limit terms of office and establish mechanisms for accountability. 

The Iranian parliament, for example, must confirm nominated ministers and can also dismiss them by votes of no-confidence.

Alongside this republican system, however, there exists a second, “revolutionary” or 

“theocratic” structure that operates very differently and with substantial independence 

The unique and opaque structure of 

the Islamic Republic—with duplicating 

and conflicting authorities in a world 

of contentious and arcane internal 

politics—can make it very difficult to 

understand exactly who has authority 

and responsibility to reach agreements 

in any given area.
from the formal governmental structure. Controlling this system is a group of about 

twenty-five individuals, members of an elite inner circle who, with varying titles, have 

held the reins of power in the Islamic Republic since its beginnings in 1979.4 This system evolved from the chaotic events of 1979–80, when the existing civil administration, 

police, and military had collapsed and the new regime found itself in a struggle for power 

with ethnic separatists, armed militias, and dissidents from across the political spectrum. 

Distrusting those civil and military institutions it inherited from the monarchy, the victors of the revolution created new structures, such as the Revolutionary Guards (Iranian 

Revolutionary Guard Corps [IRGC]) as a private security force, the revolu­tionary courts to 

administer summary justice, and the Ansar-e-Hezbollah (literally, “the supporters of the 

Party of God”) to be the enforcers and goon squads assigned to intimi­date opponents and 

fight the vicious street battles of the time against nationalists, Marxists, and the hated 

liberals. 

In the provinces, governors (employees of the Interior Ministry) found themselves overshadowed by the local “imam’s representative” and Friday prayer leader (who was often 

the same person). During the Iran-Iraq War, the IRGC, was organized into major frontline units, eclipsing the role of the regular military. In the March–April 2007 crisis over 

detained British military personnel, it was clear that the IRGC’s maritime units—not the 

Iranian navy—were the forces involved. Throughout this crisis, the role of the “official” 

Iranian government remained ambiguous. 

6. Understand that the Islamic Republic’s priority is survival. Rightly or wrongly, Iran’s 

leaders see themselves surrounded by enemies seeking the Islamic Republic’s overthrow. 

They see American military forces in Afghanistan, Iraq, Turkey, and the Persian Gulf; they 

see hostile Sunnis in Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and elsewhere; they see hostile 

Arabs to the south and west; they see hostile Turkic peoples to the west and north; they 

see nuclear-armed states in India, Pakistan, and Israel; and they see hostile Azeri irredentists to the north and Kurdish separatists to the west. When these leaders hear terms 

like “regime change” and “axis of evil,” such rhetoric confirms what they already suspect: 

that the United States is determined to overthrow the Islamic Republic, using subversion 

if possible and force if necessary.

Under these conditions, the leaders of Iran will do what they believe they must do to 

ensure their regime’s survival. With survival at stake, they will vacillate between extremes 

of concession and brutality. Near the end of the Iran-Iraq War, in June 1988, for example, 

they suddenly executed hundreds of political prisoners—some of whom had already served 

their sentences—for reasons still unclear. Although willing to sacrifice thousands of their 

country’s young men in the swamps of Khuzestan and southern Iraq during the 1980–88 

war, Iran’s leaders were not ready to sacrifice themselves and their positions. In August 

1988 they thus accepted a humiliating peace deal with Iraq when they realized further 

fighting threatened to bring down the entire Islamic Republic. They will make alliances 

with the non-Islamic (Armenia), anti-Islamic (Russia), and godless (North Korea) at the 

expense of their fellow Muslims in Azerbaijan and Chechnya. They allied themselves with 

Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi and overlooked his role in eliminating Lebanese Shia leader 

Imam Musa Sadr. They will support terrorist groups and operations to eliminate dissidents 

abroad. Believing Iran vulnerable to a Czech-style “Velvet Revolution,” they will lash out 

and arrest, imprison, harass, and murder domestic opponents, including women, harmless 

dissidents, and intellectuals whom they somehow see as a threat. Then, when driven to 

the wall, they will make sudden reversals of policy, as they did when, despite their earlier 

defiant statements, they accepted a cease-fire with Iraq in 1988.

Facing this suspicious view of the world from his or her Iranian counterpart, the American 

negoti­ator has both a problem and an opportunity. On the negative side, the American 

negotiator will encounter a wall of suspicion and mistrust from an Iranian counterpart who 

assumes that America’s ultimate purpose in dealing with Iran is to destroy the Islamic 

Republic. On the positive side, a negotiation can progress well if one can convince or 

reassure the Iranian side that its agreement to an action will not destabilize the Islamic 



Believing Iran vulnerable to a Czechstyle “Velvet Revolution,” they will 

lash out and arrest, imprison, harass, 

and murder domestic opponents, 

including women, harmless dissidents, and intellectuals whom they 

somehow see as a threat. 
Republic and may, in fact, help it survive. Tehran’s cooperation with the United States 

during the 2001–02 negotiations on Afghanistan is a case in point. At that time, the 

Iranians knew very well how they would benefit from the downfall of the Taliban and 

from its replace­ment by a government that did not subscribe to a radical anti-Shia and 

anti-Iranian ideology. Similar considerations should apply in the case of Iraq, where the 

Islamic Republic, in the interest of its own survival, shares the American aversion to a 

divided Iraq, an Iraq dominated by Sunni extremists, or an Iraq under a new version of 

Saddam Hussein. 

7. Let the Iranians define what is in their national interest. Iranians do not appreciate 

hearing lectures from others on what is logical and what is in their (i.e., Iranians’) selfinterest. Misreading Iranian interests has led to serious problems in the past, as when, for 

example, American policymakers in 1979 assumed that Iran’s basic economic and security 

interests would limit the new regime’s anti-American actions to rhetoric and symbolism. 

Such an analysis may have been correct as far as it went, but it failed to consider the 

interests of subgroups and factions in provoking a confrontation and sabotaging any 

possibility of a normal relationship between the United States and the new government 

in Tehran. In 1979–80, such groups ridiculed the whole idea of “national interest” and, 

by creating an atmosphere of hysteria and fear, ensured the ultimate victory of radical, 

absolutist religious factions in the revolutionary coalition over their nationalist and leftist 

rivals.

The Iranian representative in a negotiation knows very well what serves his national, 

partisan, family, and personal interests. Such interests may differ from—and may even 

contradict—what an outsider, largely unaware of the factional infighting in progress, 

decides is in Iran’s “national interest,” a concept that has been enormously suspect since 

the 1979 revolution.5

The same consideration applies to logic and illogic. An American negotiator should be 

wary of seeing himself or herself as the only logical side at the table and of dismissing 

the Iranian as the illogical and emotional party. As noted earlier, viewing the Iranian side 

as irrational can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. In many cases, however, the Iranian 

side is using a logic that the American side cannot penetrate—a logic perhaps dictated 

by an instinct for personal survival and by political and social forces poorly understood 

by outsiders. 

8. Understand the Iranian BATNA: Expect actions that may appear (to you) selfdestructive. American negotiators should never convince themselves, “The Iranians will 

never be so foolish as to do x.” In the past, that statement has often been a guarantee 

that they will do precisely x, driven not by foolishness, but, as noted above, by a logic 

that the outside observer does not understand. In commercial dealings, for example, informants often report that Iranians are willing to sabotage an entire deal rather than make 

some minor concession. Some experts say that Iran’s refusal to negotiate seriously with 

foreign partners on oil and natural gas contracts has stopped crucial investments and has 

damaged that sector’s ability to maintain long-term supply and revenues. 

In negotiation with Iranians, as in all negotiations, it is vital to be aware of the other 

side’s best alternative to a negotiated agreement, or BATNA,6 as well as one’s own. The 

Iranian BATNA may be difficult to predict. In some cases, the Iranian counterpart may be 

afraid to make any agreement lest he come under criticism from political adversaries at 

home for “selling out” to the foreigner. Some historians, for example, argue that Prime 

Minister Mossadegh rejected compromise settlements of the 1951–53 Anglo-Iranian oil 

nationalization dispute out of fear that his domestic political opponents would accuse 

him of surrendering to foreign interests. Such an analysis maintains, in effect, that Iranian 

domestic politics forced Mossadegh into taking self-destructive actions.

In other cases, the Iranian negotiator may not have the power to make any reasonable 

agreement, and the negotiation may become an exercise in futility. He may also, in a commercial negotiation, for example, be seeking a bribe, either for himself or on behalf of a 

An American negotiator should be 

wary of seeing himself or herself as 

the only logical side at the table 

and of dismissing the Iranian as the 

illogical and emotional party.
10

patron, to close the deal. Finally, he may be what the Iranians call mard-e-rendi, someone 

who outsmarts himself though pursuing short-term gain with a single-mindedness that 

blinds him to larger issues at stake. Iranians often impute this kind of behavior to others 

on whom they look down. Asked about this trait, a senior Iranian official complained to 

me that being mard-e-rendi (sometimes made stronger and called khar [donkey] mard-erendi) was an annoying characteristic of Indians and Pakistanis! 

9. Give your Iranian counterparts credit for intelligence. Iranians have a long history 

of being treated as simple-minded and as incapable of drawing obvious conclusions from 

available evidence. When Britain and Russia, for example, signed the treaty that divided 

Persia into spheres of influence in 1907, the preamble to their agreement stated that both 

parties pledged to respect Persian independence and territorial integrity. As one contemporary British observer put it, “Such statements are a sure sign that a country is about 

to lose both its territorial integrity and its independence.” In October 1979 the American 

administration thought it could somehow placate Iranian public opinion by announcing 

that the United States was admitting the deposed Shah for medical treatment and for 

purely humanitarian reasons. The American people may have accepted such a statement. 

Given the history of Iranian-American relations, however, no Iranian cognizant of that 

history would have believed it. The statement, rather than reassure its Iranian audience, 

insulted its intelligence and seemed to confirm what many, in the highly charged atmosphere of late 1979, already suspected: that the United States was plotting against the 

revolution and was looking to restage the events of 1953. 

In a similar way, most Iranians were perceptive enough to see the reality behind 

Mohammad Reza Shah’s pretensions to power. They saw the regime’s flashy parades, 

expensive military hardware, uniforms, statues, and ceremonies for what they were—the 

ornate exterior of a hollow shell. They understood the empty reality behind the monarchy’s 

showy exterior, and understood the profound insecurity lying just below the surface. 

Although the Shah was skilled at deceiving outsiders, he found it difficult to deceive 

his own people, who knew he owed his position to foreign backing and that he depended 

on continued foreign support to stay in power. The extent of that dependence became 

obvious in 1964, when the United States pressured the Shah and his submissive parliament into accepting changes in the existing American-Iranian Status of Forces Agreement 

(SOFA), expanding the number of resident American military advisers (and their family 

members) enjoying immunity from Iranian legal jurisdiction. At the time, the United 

States presented the change as no more than a “technical adjust­ment” to the existing 

agreement. To most Iranians, however, the new agree­ment was just further evidence of 

their country’s degradation and of the Shah’s complete subjugation of Iranian pride and 

sovereignty to the will of the Americans. Even the obedient parliament had great difficulty 

swallowing this particular humiliation.7

10. Expect a case based on vague and uncertain claims. Lacking diplomatic expertise 

and a well-trained cadre of support staff, the Iranian side rarely will be equipped with 

facts, figures, maps, and precedents with which to make its case. It is likely to rely on 

ill-defined historical claims or on appeals to “justice” (see point 13 below). Although 

some observers have noted the Iranian elite’s ability to reproduce itself despite political turmoil, the Islamic Republic has yet to recover from the policies and purges of its 

early years. At that time, the new regime openly distrusted its experts, whom it saw as 

insufficiently ideological (maktabi), and deliberately encouraged much of the country’s 

intelligentsia—unable to adapt to the nation’s new and harsh social realities under a 

theocratic system—to emigrate. What remained were slogans, a cultural revolution, and 

a lingering mistrust of intellectuals and technocrats as representing alien, decadent, and 

“non-Islamic” values.

The Islamic Republic associated technical expertise with the old regime. In October 

1979, for example, one heard the cry at rallies, “As for those carping intellectuals, we will 

break their pens!” (or their legs, depending on the translation of the Persian qalam). The 

Lacking diplomatic expertise and 

a well-trained cadre of support 

staff, the Iranian side rarely will be 

equipped with facts, figures, maps, 

and precedents with which to make 

its case. 
11

new, revolutionary regime preferred to put ideologues in charge of ministries, where true 

belief in the new theocracy outweighed training and qualifications. The result was a social 

and cultural revolution in which a generation of inexperienced “new men” took positions 

of influence and marginalized those tainted by travel, foreign education, and association 

with the old regime. The Islamic Republic quickly purged the Iranian foreign ministry, for 

example, of its experienced professionals, and replaced them with inexperienced radicals, 

including those who had learned their diplomacy by capturing and holding the staff of 

the U.S. embassy in 1979–81. 

11. Expect grandstanding, political theater, and flamboyant gestures. Much of what 

happens in Iran’s political life includes a large element of theater. During the 1980–88 

Iran-Iraq War, for example, the media would show ordinary citizens donating jewelry and 

other valuables for the war and mothers saying how happy they were to have their sons 

martyred for the cause. During political conflict, partisans will parade purportedly martyred bodies through the streets in noisy processions in order to stir up pride and anger. 

The mourning ceremonies marking the holiest days of Shia Islam often feature music, 

chanting, costumes, animals, and elaborate displays. When students seized the U.S. 

embassy in November 1979, they saw themselves making a “gesture” against the United 

States without much thought about consequences or what came next. When President 

Ahmadinezhad announced the release of the British military captives in April 2007, he 

described the action as a “gesture of friendship” to the British people.

In such a setting, the appearance and the grand gesture can replace substance, and 

the American negotiator needs to sort out which is which. The equivalent of bumper 

stickers can replace policy. Iran’s political discourse often features fiery rhetoric, slogans, 

and words like “never,” “to the death,” and “not one inch.” Even the feeble and bankrupt 

Qajar monarchs of the nineteenth century, while presiding over their country’s collapse, 

portrayed themselves as mighty conquerors and heirs to the great Iranian kings of history 

and mythology with titles such as “he to whom the world directs its prayers” (qebleh-yealam). During the conflicts of the early twentieth century, fiery telegrams and petitions 

flew around the country as citizens pledged to defend the new Iranian constitution to the 

death. When matters got difficult, however, the thousands of would-be defenders of the 

constitution weighed their options and made themselves scarce, joining what Iranians call 

the “party of the winds” (hezb-e-baad).

Khomeini himself was a master of defiant rhetoric. During the 1979–81 hostage crisis, 

his memorable statement, “America can’t do a damn thing” (a polite translation of a 

much cruder Persian original), immediately appeared on hundreds of walls and banners 

throughout the country. In 1981, in a fit of anti-British piqué, the Iranians renamed 

Churchill Avenue near the British embassy for martyr Bobby Sands, the IRA operative who 

had starved himself to death in a British prison. In an ironic sequel to that incident, a 

British reporter in Tehran in 2007 describes having a meal at the “Bobby Sands Snack 

Bar” near the British embassy. 

Such rhetorical gestures and flourishes can sometimes become policy and lock the 

Iranians into uncomfortable and even self-destructive positions. The slogan “War, war, 

until victory” meant that thousands of Iranians became victims of their leaders’ rhetoric 

and died pursuing a pointless conflict with Iraq after Tehran rejected the opportunity for 

a favorable settlement in 1982. In the late-1980s, as revolutionary fervor cooled, the 

reminder, “Don’t forget ‘Death of America’ ” would appear on Tehran walls, a tacit admission of the end of revolutionary enthusiasm. The Islamic Republic spent years untangling 

itself from the effects of Khomeini’s 1989 famous ruling ordering the death of the British 

writer Salman Rushdie for the heretical views expressed in his novel The Satanic Verses. 

12. Remember that power is respected, weakness despised. Iranians may fear Aesop’s 

merciless King Stork, but they detest quiescent King Log. A recurring theme of Iranian 

history is the respect accorded strong leaders—even blood­thirsty ones—who are able to 

check the powerful centrifugal forces in the society. Public order has always been very preIn such a setting, the appearance and 

the grand gesture can replace substance, and the American negotiator 

needs to sort out which is which.
12

carious in Iran, and a powerful ruler is seen as the only safeguard against the anarchy that 

is always lurking in the wings. Iran has seen recurring social and economic collapse when 

there is no strong ruler in charge. Tribes, ethnic groups, the clergy, urban mobs, external 

enemies, and opportunistic politicians are always ready to challenge current authorities. 

The pious, weak, and ineffective last ruler of the Safavid dynasty (1500–1722), Shah 

Sultan Hussein (1694–1722), is still Iranians’ proverbial King Log, the feeble leader who 

brings the country to ruin and collapse. The contrast is the seventh-century Caliph Omar, 

who, although hated by Shia Muslims as a usurper, earns grudging admiration as a strong, 

harsh, decisive, and effective ruler. Both of these rulers’ names have entered the common 

language as symbols of weak and strong leadership.

Connected to the above is another recurring theme of Iranian history: leadership is 

always personal and always charismatic. Ayatollah Khomeini drew a huge personal following when he was seen as a savior of Iran and Islam. Although some convinced themselves 

he would withdraw to his mosque to teach and study after the victory of the revolutionary 

forces in February 1979, the realities of Iran’s political culture meant that he could never 

leave to others the business of governing. As long as he was alive, he remained the final 

authority, and no one—not a president, a prime minister, or anyone else—could exercise 

any meaningful power. In such an environment, American attempts in 1979 to deal with 

revolutionary Iran through the nationalist technocrats of the Provisional Government were 

doomed to failure; soon it became obvious that the real power in Iran did not lie with 

officials carrying ministerial titles.

Similarly, after the moderate and scholarly Mohammad Khatami became president of 

Iran in 1997, many Iranians saw him as their country’s savior after the years of postrevolutionary austerity and violence. When President Khatami proved unable to fulfill those high 

expectations, his prestige plummeted as Iranians felt that they had been deceived into 

electing a new version of Shah Sultan Hussein. By the end of his second term in 2005, 

many Iranians dismissed not only Khatami but the entire reform movement as a collection of feckless, squabbling intellectuals who were no match for those tough ideologues 

who had cut their teeth in the street battles, political infighting, and gang warfare of the 

1980s and 1990s.

The Iranian respect for power does not mean that an American negotiator can rely on 

threats and intimidation to make his or her case. That respect means only that the Iranian 

side will well understand the multiple pressures—internal and external—that impel them 

to accept or reject a particular offer. In response to an American proposal, the Iranian 

side will calculate—rightly or wrongly—how much pressure (of all kinds) lies behind the 

proposal, and that degree of pressure will become part of the calculation of response.8

13. Understand that justice, often in a harsh version, in the abstract is extremely 

important. From ancient times Iranian history has abounded in references to daad and 

adl, two words for “justice,” both closely associated with din (religion). Shia Islam even 

adds divine justice (adl), along with the imamate, to the three fundamental elements of 

religion—divine unity, prophethood, and resurrection—that it shares with Sunni Islam. 

In a negotiation, the Iranian side may therefore frame its demands, not in specific or 

quantitative terms but in terms that claim, “All we are seeking is justice” or “We want 

our rights.” For Ayatollah Khomeini, for example, such justice meant assigning blame 

and punishing the guilty party in a dispute. In this spirit, he once told a visiting NonAligned Movement team seeking to mediate a settlement to the Iran-Iraq War that its 

true “mediation” mission was to visit both Iran and Iraq, examine what had happened, 

and determine which of the warring parties had right and justice on its side. “If we are 

wrong, then condemn us. But if they are wrong, then condemn them. Justice demands 

you do this” (author’s emphasis).9

Justice in the Iranian context can be harsh and not always tempered by mercy. The 

Persian proverb says, Zolm bessaviyeh adl ast, “Injustice equally applied equals justice.” 

With a fragile society, a violent history, and foreign and domestic enemies always ready to 

take advantage of weakness, many Iranians believe that justice should be quick, decisive, 

Tribes, ethnic groups, the clergy, 

urban mobs, external enemies, 

and opportunistic politicians are 

always ready to challenge current authorities. 

Justice in the Iranian context can 

be harsh and not always tempered 

by mercy.
13

and visible. After the victory of the 1979 revolution, for example, there was little interest 

among the victors in long and carefully prepared trials for the vanquished. Despite an 

international outcry against the rapid verdicts and procedural short­cuts of the revolutionary courts, “justice”—in that context—demanded swift and visible punishment of the 

guilty (or even the innocent). A nationalist minister in the Iranian pro­visional government 

of 1979 rejected the American chargé’s argument that the summary justice and verdicts of 

the revolutionary courts were harming Iran’s image. The minister replied, “If we had had 

faster trials and more executions in 1953, then maybe the CIA couldn’t have overthrown 

Mossadegh.”10

14. Remember that conspiracy theories have great currency—and are sometimes 

true. Iranians seem unable to accept simple and straightforward explanations of events. 

The complex account is preferred, if only because it is more interesting and creative. 

Behind the surface of events, Iranians often see hidden hands pulling strings and manipulating the world to some subtle and malevolent purpose. To some royalist Iranians, for 

example, Iran’s 1978–79 Islamic Revolution was the product of foreign conspiracies to 

remove a Shah who had become too powerful and too independent-minded for the taste 

of his Western friends. According to one version of this theory, President Carter and his 

allies no longer saw the Shah as a reliable buffer against Soviet expansion and sought to 

replace him with a “green belt” of Islamic regimes, which could better resist the godless 

Communists. 

While some of the conspiracy theories may appear absurd, behind them lies a deeper 

reality. Iranians have often been subject to historical forces out of their control or comprehension, whether in the form of brutal Mongols in the thirteenth century or of manipulative British and Russians in the nineteenth and twentieth. These forces were never 

benevolent and were willing to use violence, terror, bribery, and subversion—including 

recruiting Iranian agents—in pursuing of their ends and in destroying Iranians’ attempts 

to control their own destiny.

The model of modern conspiracies turned out to be true. The CIA did manipulate and 

bribe Iranians to bring about the downfall of the nationalist Prime Minister Mossadegh in 

August 1953. Although historians still argue about the details of what happened during 

those events, no one disputes that the CIA played a central role in toppling the popular 

prime minister and restoring the weakened Pahlavi monarch. Given that history, it was 

hardly surprising that twenty-six years later Iranians found it hard to accept the American 

explanation that in October 1979 the exiled Mohammad Reza Shah was coming to the 

United States “only for medical treatment.” In the hysterical postrevolutionary atmosphere 

of 1979 and in the prevailing chaos inside Iran, those Iranians predisposed to seeing 

conspiracies could easily find signs of a new U.S.-sponsored plot to create instability, 

restage the events of 1953, and undo the revolution.

15. Expect hands to be overplayed. The Iranian side may push a small or momentary 

advantage to a point beyond calculations of gain and loss. Many Iranians attach a negative connotation to the adjective hesabgar (calculating), which implies that someone is 

willing to sacrifice principles, friendships, or feelings for material gain. At times of political stress, Iranians can appear to discard calculation of advantage and disadvantage and 

become captives of unrealistic, rigid positions and extremist rhetoric.

During the 1979–81 hostage crisis, for example, the Islamic Republic felt that possession of the American embassy staff gave it an advantage over a U.S. government 

determined to destroy the revolutionary regime and replace it with either a restored 

monarchy or something else more friendly to American interests. Rather than calculate 

their country’s long-term interests—which would have demanded a quick end to the crisis 

and would have reinforced the international credentials of the new Islamic Republic—the 

country’s leaders, bolstered by mass demonstrations of support for the students’ action, 

felt themselves able (or perhaps compelled) to defy the world. Many of the former hostagetakers have since said that they lost control over events and have justified their action as 

Iranians often see hidden hands 

pulling strings and manipulating

the world to some subtle and 

malevolent purpose.
14

a product of the “revolutionary fury” that gripped Iran in those days. It is worth noting, 

however, that during the anti-Shah disturbances of 1978–79, the revolu­tionaries were 

usually very careful to avoid targeting foreigners. At that time, at least, they knew the 

value of favorable press in Europe and the United States—a press that could enlist world 

opinion on their side.

After capturing American personnel, Iran pushed its temporary advantage to an extent 

that eventually cost hundreds of thousands of Iranian lives and almost destroyed the 

country. When Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi forces attacked Iran in September 1980, Tehran 

found itself, thanks to having overplayed its hand and alienated potential supporters, 

with very few friends willing to admit that, in all fairness, Iran was in this case the victim 

and Iraq the aggressor. In 1982, after Iranian forces won a major victory and expelled the 

Iraqis from the port at Khorramshahr, Saddam offered Iran a peace based on the status 

quo ante. Urged on by Imam Khomeini’s rhetoric, however, the Iranian side felt it could 

press its momentary advantage to bring about the final defeat of its enemy. The results 

were six more years of carnage, poison gas warfare, and, finally, a humiliating acceptance 

of a UN-brokered cease-fire in 1988.

In such a setting it is crucial for the American negotiator to be patient, remain focused 

on the issues under discussion, and not be drawn into debating deadends. If one sees 

the other side is over­playing its hand, the best response is to ask, “Please explain why 

are you demanding this?” “On what basis are you asking for that?” “How did you come to 

that figure?” In such a setting, establishing objective criteria that both sides can accept 

will be vital. Sometimes mediation or arbitration by an impartial body (such as the Hague 

Tribunal for adjudi­ca­ting financial claims) can be a useful mechanism to counter what may 

appear to be unreasonable demands. In late 1980, when Deputy Secretary of State Warren 

Christopher received a message from the Iranians that tripled their monetary demands for 

the release of the American hostages to $24 billion, he persevered in the negotiations and 

eventually those demands were dropped.11

No Sure Thing

What works in any negotiation—being prepared, building relationships, exercising 

patience, knowing both one’s own and the other side’s BATNA, understanding the other 

side’s real interests, among other things—can work in negotiations with the Islamic 

Republic. Such was the experience of Americans and Iranians in 2001–02 during negotiations over Afghanistan following the fall of the Taliban. Both sides have described the 

other as professional, businesslike, and, most important, free of the negative preconceptions that have sabotaged many attempts at dialogue. 

The negotiators who apply the above principles can reach an agreement—but they may 

not. Even the above guidelines are no guarantee of productive contacts.12 As noted, both 

Americans and Iranians too often arrive at the negotiating table burdened with preconceptions, grievances, ignorance, resentment, and the opinion—based on a special reading of 

history—that the other side is deceptive, infinitely crafty, and will, in the end, reveal its 

true nature in hostility, treachery, and lies.

The first thing to do is to define carefully what is “successful” and “productive” in a 

negotiation. Of course the American side would like to see the Islamic Republic end its 

suspicious nuclear program, cease supporting terrorist movements, announce its backing 

for a negotiated Middle East peace settlement, end its supply of deadly weapons to Iraqi 

militias, and treat its own people, particularly its women, with decency. For the Iranian 

side, the ideal outcome is that the United States lifts economic sanctions, stops supporting Iranian dissidents, ends talk of “regime change,” and removes the Islamic Republic 

from the American government’s list of state sponsors of terrorism. 

Such happy outcomes, however, will not be the result of at least the first, second, or 

even third meetings. Expectations for productive results in these initial meetings should 

What works in any negotiation—

being prepared, building relationships, exercising patience, knowing 

both one’s own and the other side’s 

BATNA, understanding the other 

side’s real interests, among other 

things—can work in negotiations 

with the Islamic Republic.
15

be more modest: recognition of potential common interests—in Iraq or Afghanistan, for 

example—and the fact that it is worthwhile to sit at the table for discussions free of 

accumulated rancor and rhetoric. Given the unfortunate history of the U.S.-Iranian relationship for the past twenty-eight years, such discussions would represent a major step 

forward. In the current climate, it would be more than fair to describe such negotiations, 

whatever their immediate outcome, as productive.

Notes

1. See David Ignatius, “Countering Iran’s Distrust,” Washington Post, May 27, 2007, B7.

2. Such is the view of Norman Podhoretz, as expressed on PBS’s News Hour, October 29, 2007.

3. See Ali Ansari, Confronting Iran: The Failure of American Foreign Policy and the Next Great Crisis in 

the Middle East (New York: Basic Books, 2006), 203.

4. For further discussion of this elite, see John Limbert, Iran: At War with History (Boulder, Colo.: 

Westview Press, 1987), 145–49.

5. Iranian opponents of President Ahmadinezhad, for example, criticize him for goading the Western 

countries in a way that does not serve Iran’s national interests. For his part, Ahmadinezhad might compare his rhetoric to earlier statements by Imam Khomeini in which he subordinated national interest 

to pan-Islamic ideals.

6. The term was coined by Roger Fisher and William Ury in Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement without Giving In (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1981).

7. Ayatollah Khomeini established his nationalist credentials with Iranians by his outspoken opposition to this agreement. His blunt criticism of the SOFA led to the Shah’s sending him into exile, where 

he remained until early 1979.

8. There is an often-quoted statement (of uncertain origin) that says, “Iranians will never give in to 

pressure. They will give in only to a lot of pressure.”

9. Cited in Limbert, Iran: At War with History, 141. 

10. Author’s memory of Laingen-Foruhar meeting, Tehran, October 1979.

11. Warren Christopher, “Welcome to the Bazaar,” Los Angeles Times, June 13, 2006.

12. Even that master of negotiation Professor Roger Fisher (the author of Getting to Yes) admitted to 

his Harvard Law School class in January 1992 that his contacts with Iranian senior officials during the 

crisis were fruitless.
United States 

Institute of Peace

1200 17th Street NW

Washington, DC 20036

www.usip.org

An online edition of this and related 

reports can be found on our Web site 

(www.usip.org), together with additional 

information on the subject.

Of Related Interest

This report is part of the United States Institute of Peace’s ongoing Cross-Cultural Negotiation Project, which has so far generated several reports and eleven books. Recent 

books include

•	 India-Pakistan Negotiations: Is Past Still Prologue? by Denis Kux (2006)

• How Israelis and Palestinians Negotiate: A Cross-Cultural Analysis of the Oslo Peace 

Process, edited by Tamara Cofman Wittes (2005)

• Case Studies in Japanese Negotiating Behavior, by Michael Blaker, Paul Giarra, and Ezra 

Vogel (2005)

•	 French Negotiating Behavior: Dealing with La Grande Nation, by Charles Cogan (2003)

•	 How Germans Negotiate: Logical Goals, Practical Solutions, by W. R. Smyser (2003)

•	 Chinese Negotiating Behavior: Pursuing Interests through “Old Friends,” by Richard H. 

Solomon (1999)