page_title: Seyed Hossein Mousavian
section_title: Current views
hierarchical_section_title: Seyed Hossein Mousavian / Current views
caption_attribution_description: Nuclear Iran: Negotiating a Way Out, 4 February 2013
context_page_description: Seyed Hossein Mousavian is an Iranian policymaker and scholar who served on Iran's nuclear diplomacy team in negotiations with the EU and International Atomic Energy Agency. He currently resides in the United States, where he is a visiting research scholar at Princeton University.
context_section_description: Mousavian expressed deep concern about developments in Iran after that country's 2009 presidential election, but continued "to press for the U.S. to engage Tehran in a bid to reduce regional tensions," according to a 2010 article by Jay Solomon in the Wall Street Journal. Mousavian believes that any future Iranian government will continue to pursue a nuclear fuel program, and that the U.S. should therefore improve relations with Tehran as a safeguard against an atomic weapons program. He also opposes UN sanctions against Iran, saying they "only serve to radicalize [Tehran’s] position." Instead of imposing sanctions, the U.S. should "shape a comprehensive dialogue with Iran based on shared interests in stabilizing Iraq and Afghanistan" and "should develop with Tehran a broad security plan for the Persian Gulf that could prove crucial to securing the free flow of energy in and out of the strategic waterway."
  Mousavian dismissed as "politically motivated" the conclusions of a November 2011 report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) that suggested "possible military dimensions" to Iran's nuclear program.
  Writing in National Interest in December 2012, Mousavian questioned the assumption by Western powers that "the best hope of altering Tehran’s nuclear policy and halting its enrichment activities" lies in "comprehensive international sanctions and a credible threat of military strike." Mousavian maintained that "such punitive pressures... will not change the Iranian leadership’s mindset, and that a military option would be catastrophic" for everyone. Besides, he insisted, Iran has no interest in acquiring nuclear weapons. He offered ten reasons why this is the case, among them that developing nuclear weaponry would be considered "forbidden or haram" under Islam, would "trigger a regional nuclear arms race," and would be contrary to Iran's goal of becoming a modern nation.
  In another December 2012 article, Mousavian argued that "U.S. strategists... should understand... the role of religion and clerics" in Iran. Noting that the world's "most powerful ideological-political party... is the Shia Cleric Organization in Iran," he complained that "Western policymakers and some of their 'Iranian experts'... have yet to realize that the clerical system... is a collective decision-making process, with heated discussions and debates among about twenty of the most revered Grand Ayatollahs in the country." Washington, he emphasized, "needs to recognize that Islam is the main source of Iranian power, and the religious establishments will play a key role in the future developments of Iran and the region....Instead of changing Iran's government, the United States should focus its regional policy on three key areas: addressing the Palestinian issue, engaging moderate Islamists, and pursuing a regional security pact."
  In a January 2013 New York Times op-ed headlined "How to Talk to Iran," Mousavian and Mohammed Ali Shabani argued that there will be no “resolution of the nuclear standoff” between Iran and the West if Western leaders fail to grasp two key concepts: "maslahat," meaning "expediency, or self-interest" and "aberu," meaning "face – as in, saving face." For millennia, they wrote, "Persian culture has been distinguished by customs that revolve around honor and esteem....There are almost no instances in modern Iranian history when maslahat has trumped aberu. The West has poorly understood these concepts. This was particularly true under President Bush, who rewarded Iran’s tacit acceptance of the American invasion of Afghanistan by labeling Iran a member of an 'axis of evil.'" Mousavian and Shabani expressed the belief that "Iran would be open to new measures regarding the transparency of its nuclear program, and would agree not to pursue any capability to enrich uranium beyond that needed to fuel atomic power plants, if its legitimate right to enrichment under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty was recognized and if an agreement to remove sanctions was reached."
  Mousavian is a member of the International Panel on Fissile Ma
caption: Nuclear Iran: Negotiating a Way Out.
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