An amazing crowd. We had to turn away a good 50 people or more. There is a briefing on u. S. And it is part of a National History center bringing historical perspectives to Current Issues that have confronted congress. It is a political position. It is nonpartisan. It is intended to inform policymakers in public about the sorts of finishes theyre dealing with. I want to give a few thanks to the melon foundation. I also want to thank our assistance jeffrey who is outside of this room for helping make the arrangements. I want to thank the off the of gerry connolly. I want to explain why there was index cards on your seats. We will get questions, answer questions, but we would like you to write those questions on the index cards. So keep them ready and jot down questions when they come to mind. Everyone out there that supports the National Historic center and thank you for coming to the event. We have to get you information about professional organizations like schaffer. Panel rooms are faculty like this every june when that meets. With this National Relationship as with history as a matter of one defines it. For some, we need to understand why Thomas Jefferson had booked about about the work and education and the Public Health they continue to do through the mid 20th century. Some would contend they were displaced by the third presence in iran, can and it came in the form of tens of thousands of troops. Others would point to dates like 1953 when they overflu a democraticly elected government at the height of the cold war. Still others are interested in the more contemporary past that started in 1979. The monarchy was replaced with the republic of iran. So we have the deep past, the cold war period, and the more contemporary era. It is an exciting time to be studying the relations and today we have a range of methodologies to help us understand the past. They have continued to unfold through the continued declassification of documents. Through the lens of race, culture, gender, and emotion to name a few. Others help drive it, they come from the iran and middle east studies. One could borrow from other disciplines besides history as well. Political science for instance always helping to move the relationship forward. We have two speakers today. Someone a professor in department of political science. Ly not read it to you here, you have plenty of information on the program, but many of us have probably read u. S. Foreign policy and the shaw. Our second presenter is the associate director of the middle east center at the university of pennsylvania. He also has a very long list of public indications in the comes months, in the coming year or so. When it is published. With that, i will turn the floor ov over. Thank you for inviting me here. I am talking about the revolution 40 years ago. The u. S. Has really shifted a lot and cycled back and forth through different approaches for iran to simplify things a little bit. I would say the policy has cycled through three main postures toward iran in the 40 year revolution. First a posture of engagement in which the u. S. Uses primarily third parties to reach a comprehensive setmentment. And also engagement usually is aimed at bringing about some kind of domestic change in iran, but certainly peacefully, mainly encouraging moderates. The model for engagement is say u. S. And china in the 1970s when the u. S. And china fwrent being extremely hostile toward each other toward a more cooperative relationship. Secondly, cosergs. Economic sanctions, various levels, iran backing down across the board, but really what the preference is using these hostile measures to carry out regime change in iran to try to bring down the islamic regime or to change it for substantially. Thirdly containment. There is possible containment toward iran where they limit irans objectionable behavior. Sometimes they have made limited transactional agreement thats are mutually beneficial, but contain suspect mainly aimed at contained iranian influence. Limiting its geographic spread. Throughout the cold war. So im going to very briefly stretch through, since the revolution, the early ones im going to skip through pretty quickly. You have written about johns forth coming book that will be very good. So ten periods in u. S. Policy toward iran. The u. S. Really bounced back and forth between different approaches. The Carter Administration before t the administration. Before then the Carter Administration made efforts to try to encourage moderates and try to, you know, swing the iranian revolution in a moderate direction. But the Carter Administration was consumed with trying to get the hostages released and iran was in the process of rapid radic radicalization and it was just made im possible to achieve change with iran. So the Carter Administration was a time of engagement and this was entirely frustrated by growing radicalization in iran. The second time period, you might think this was a period of hostility and coercion, but this was not a faze of coercion. I would score this as a faze phf containment toward iran. Especially lebanon in the early 1980s. They were backing groups that were precursors, and they did a lot of very nasty things. Killed sever they took about 15 american civilians. Some were tortured to death. There was a lot of severe hostility and attacks by iran. Despite that they were really restrained. So the early reagan period i would score as containment. And relatively effective in this regard. Iran became rapidly isolated. The second is the contra affair. 1985 and 1986, they tried to get hostages released. And it was aimed at trying to initiate talks with iran that would snowball to change and moderation on the part of the iranians. This of course didnt work. Radicals torpedoed this initiative. I would score them as an effort as engagement, but it, too, did not work, just like carters efforts. After iran contra, the last two years of the reagan administration, basically this was a period of reversion to containment. There was a lot of tension between the u. S. And iran in this period. And the last couple years, the iranianiraq war. Not really coercion, but far from engagement. So the first ten years cycling back and forth. Engage want and containment, nothing really working very well. The First Bush Administration coming into office in early 1989 at least initially gave a look of pursuing them with iran but it never really got anywhere. It was good will be gets good will. If iran shows good will to the u. S. And getting friends in lebanon to release the remaining american hostages, if they show good will, we will reciprocate. It took three years for them to be released and that changed things quite a bit. And secondly u. S. Priorities shifted rapidly after the desert storm war. The bush the First Bush Administration was very invested in that, pushed it very hard, iran was very p much an opponent, and that really soured the prospects for better relations. So i would score the First Bush Administration as a period of containment even though there was talk about engaging in pursuing engagement but that never really got off of the ground. The early clinton period continued this. They were pursuing many of the same goals as the Bush Administration in the u. S. Particularly the process. And also, in the early clinton years, iran was carrying out a lot of terrorist attacks assassinating iranian exiles and also a couple of argentina and elsewhere. Iran is really being schizophrenic. But on the other hand, carrying out very, very nasty attacks. All of this culminated in the bombing of 1996 backed by iran. Certainly not carried out by iran, in which 19 u. S. Air force personnel were killed in a very dramatic terrorist attack. There was suspicion immediately. But they didnt get concrete proof of this for quite some time. So the Clinton Administration chose to wait until they had strong evidence. By the time they had strong evidence things changed a lot. And the Clinton Administration never retaliated with military force. But they retaliated with a fascinating operation called operation sapphire. I guess the more important time peer today comes in may of 1997 yen he was elected, and he quickly started making overtures in the United States. And they realized there was an important change afoot here and started to reciprocate. Maybe in the beginning of 1998 the Clinton Administration was trying to strengthen, take advantage of the change that occurred in iran and see if they could make something of it. Nothing really came of it, certainly not in the remainder of the clinton term. The george w. Bush administration inherited this from clinton. In some ways conditions were even more fruitful having to do wa. Wendy what is going on internally in iran in 2001. The Bush Administration never really formulated their iran policy. But more soft line people wanting to continue obamas approach of endagment. But once they wanted to overthrow the taliban government and wipe out Training Camps there, and then iran was very helpful in setting up the new government and the Bush Administration certainly took advantage of this good will by iran, but did not reciprocate. Pretty quickly the Bush Administration started to reveal its new approach toward iran in general. It was a global war on tr terrorism. Iran was brought in, and iran as well. And so in early 2002 bush made a speech, i think it was a state of the union speech at that time qualitying iran an access of eefl. It was basically a period of coercion. Gradually tensions letted up. There ethnic forces, carrying out terrorist attacks in iran, and iran backing militias in iraq that carried out many many attacks in u. S. Forces. So you could say there was a low level secret war with hundreds killed on both sides. Fingerprints on the weapons, and hundreds of iranians killed and this is kind of murky. So certainly the last seven years or so were a period of cosergs. And the model for cosergs that is out there today. Finally that brings us to the Barack Obama Administration with the failure of the Bush Administration to achievement, obama came into office wanting to pursue a different approach and engagement. He made a series of speeches in his first year calling for better relations with iran and he tried very hard. So gradually they started to further ratchet up the sanctions, and iran really started to scream. The economy went into a tail spin. So in about 2013, the Obama Administration launched an initiative toward iran to negotiate, and john will be talking about that in a little bit, and that lead to the jcpoa, the obama people hoped this would lead further to a broader engagement effort, but nothing came of that. And he did agree to limit its future lar program and has been providing to that recently, but nothing came of it. So in this sense, obamas endagment was very much a failure. So that bricks us up to the Trump Administration. I would say that the Trump Administration as has not fully revealed their inattentions, but i would say it is not at all out of the question that President Trump might decide to do with iran what he has been doing with north korea, which has been pretty bizarre, but it is not at all out of the question. And he hinted about that, talked about that. It is really too early to say. So what conclusions can we draw from this cycling back and forth between three postures with iran. Iran just doesnt really respond either to, you know, friendship or hostility from the United States. Engagement, there has been four major efforts of engagement. None of them produce anything other than small agreements here and there. Mainly because forces are continuing to torpedo these efforts. So you know engagement has not really played it has not been successful so far and i think the prospects are limited. Secondly is coercion. It was the george w. Bush administration. This got nowhere. Hundreds of personnel killed with iranian fingerprints and not a stopping to Irans Nuclear program in that area. Coercion has also not worked in that past. This brings us to containment. I would say it has also not worked very well toward iran, maybe better to engagement and coercion. They have expands their presence in places like lebanon, iraq, syria. On the other hand, they are pretty isolated in the middle east. The only government friendly with iran is syria. They have a few friends here and there like hezbollah. And there is small specific transactional agreements reached in the various containment initiatives that we have seen most importantly the jcpoa of 20 15. I think containment is about the only thing to hope for for the for seeable future. And the fundamental problem remains internal political forces. Ov overwhemingly. The one ray of light, the one piece of good news that i can mention is that he is now 80 years old. He is ailing, he has prostate cancer. He lasted a long time, one of these days he will exit the scene maybe in five years or so that might possibly bring about change in iran they should be prepared for this possibility, but there is no possibility that they will be any better, so probably containment for the for seeable future. So that is probably the best we will see. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you for inviting me, and thank you so them, it is an honor to be able to share the stage. Were excited to see so many people here. Can someone give jim a seat, she a former hostage in iran. Someone could give him a seat. I think that is important. I will try to be as brief as i can. Mark saying im going to great the Nuclear Issue. I am happy to talk this through in the q and a. But it will be my as a historian, i have been working on this book now, and when you tell people what youre working on, i remember a few years ago when the jcpoa was being negotiated, what do you think of the nuclear deal, is it good or bad . And i would surprise people saying it is a good deal. Anyone that hooks losely would say that but i think it is irrelevant. But it is an entire Nuclear Crisis that is largely a distraction and it is difficult to engage with in isolation from the larger issue of the u. S. And iran ri laces. Im not sure if i entirely agree with that and i think you understand that if you look at the iranian Nuclear Program. Im hoping that i can make that argument here. But in the chance of an constructive diplomacy, there is not much point in talking about isotopes and fuel rods and enrichment and centrifuges. And i think it is a larger atmosphere than was constructed. That nuclear deal was negotiated at a great, great time and energy. And in the end, it all kind of disappeared in a different political climate. So i think thats what we really have to address and mark, of course, has laid out very nicely some of the broader outlines of this political climate, but im going to talk about the history in about ten minutes and hopefully get us up to the current moment were in so we can understand better why it is that maybe this isnt quite as important as we think it is. The takeaway message i have today is its not really about the Nuclear Program, all right . Its not really about that. So as an historian, lets start at the beginning. Im curious by a show of hands how many people actually know when or well, when the iranian Nuclear Program actually began. Raise your hand if you know. Not the panelists. Okay, one john lindbergh, basically. Present at the creation. It actually begins in 1957, 58 and begins with cooperation, actually very vigorous cooperation from the United States. It is the Eisenhower Administration that had its flagship adams for peace program. This is an attempt after some horrors of hiroshima, nagasaki, to prove that Nuclear Power could be used for peaceful purpose, atoms for peace program. To help them develop peaceful, Nuclear Energy for their civilian purposes. So the United States gave iran its first many of you may not know this. The United States gave iran its first batch of enrichedure anian in 1958. Under the johnson administration, helped to build its Tehran Research reactor. This was, you know, isotopes for medical purposes. And this continued throughout the late 60s and 70s. It wasnt just democrats, its important to note. Some of the most vigorous advocates of iranian Nuclear Program in the 1970s were people like henry kissinger, Donald Rumsfeld and dick cheney in the Ford Administration in the mid 1970s. Look at some of the documents, youll see how vigorous they pushed this. They felt it was important for iran. You often hear the talking points from opponents, vigorous opponents of iran. Why does iran need Nuclear Power . No one can take seriously the idea they would need Nuclear Power, theyre such an oilrich nation, right . The United States actually felt that iran needed Nuclear Power and the basic reason for this i dont want to get into too many details about this, but if you have oil it doesnt make sense to build complicated refineries to then use that oil to for domestic powe