Payam Mohseni: Q&A

In this Q&A, Belfer Center Communications Director Josh Burek asks Payam Mohseni about the Center's new Iran Project which Mohseni directs and about the potential for increased U.S.-Iranian cooperation.

You’re leading the Belfer Center’s new Iran Program. Tell us about some of its unique goals.

The Iran Project is dedicated to promoting the study of contemporary Iranian politics, particularly on issues that pertain to important challenges of international security, such as the Iranian nuclear program, U.S.-Iran relations, and Iran’s role in the Middle East. It will contribute to the Belfer Center’s already formidable work and expertise on Iran and the nuclear negotiations by taking a more comprehensive and broader analytical perspective on the country.

One especially distinctive feature is our plan to engage Iran—to support collaborative research between Harvard and Iranian universities and to become a diplomatic bridge connecting scholars and students between the two countries. We’re interested in hearing Iranian perspectives and enriching our experience and knowledge of Iranian affairs through dialogue and collaboration. We will also be organizing many events on Iran throughout the academic year, inviting scholars and policymakers to speak on Iran, and publishing reports and working papers on Iranian affairs. The Iran Project also hopes to support the efforts of Iranian students and all those involved in Iranian studies at Harvard University more broadly.

You spent quite a bit of time in Iran this summer. What’s the mood there? And what are some of the biggest misconceptions Westerners have about the Iranian people?

The mood in Iran is hopeful right now. With the election of President Rouhani last year and the ongoing nuclear negotiations, people want to see a successful resolution of the negotiations, a lifting of sanctions, and the normalization of Iran’s ties to the outside world. They are really hopeful that a peaceful and diplomatic solution is in reach.

I think many people in the West may not recognize how dynamic and educated Iranian society is. There is a rich and vibrant social and cultural life that is absent in common media portrayals of Iran. Iran’s major cities, such as Tehran, are very modern, urban, and more similar to major urban centers found outside the Middle East. Also, Iranians are not anti-Western or anti-American, although they may not like U.S. foreign policies. Iranians are probably the most sympathetic people to Americans in the Middle East if not the Islamic world.

One thing that Iranians are worried about is the instability on their borders, particularly the rise of ISIS. The disgust and fear that Iranians have at seeing images of these terrorist groups is very similar to American perceptions, and it points to a socially rooted convergence of interests between Americans and Iranians in opposing terrorism.

In your recent op-eds, you’ve called for greater Western engagement with Iran, in part to combat the threat posed by ISIL. This is not a popular view within the American foreign policy establishment. What gives you confidence that such engagement is both possible and advisable?

U.S. and Iranian cooperation has happened before under seemingly less hospitable circumstances. The Bush administration and Iran cooperated first on Afghanistan following 9/11 and then again on Iraq. And at that time, U.S. and Iranian officials were not even on speaking terms and were not able to formally meet. Today, however, circumstances have changed with the unprecedented public contacts between U.S. and Iranian officials, such as meetings between John Kerry and Javad Zarif, and the phone conversation between Presidents Obama and Rouhani last year. The taboo of direct contact and engagement has broken for both sides.

In addition, there is a clear convergence of interests between the U.S. and Iran in opposing ISIS, preserving regional stability, abating sectarianism, and helping construct more inclusive and durable political systems across the Middle East. Iran, moreover, is one of the strongest and most stable states in the region that actually has the power and influence to effectively shape events outside its borders. To increase its leverage in the region and advance its national interests, the U.S. should engage Iran on these issues. And it should work to produce greater reconciliation between Iran and Saudi Arabia as the two main protagonists of the regional cold war—without which the hopes for peace and stability will be only bleaker in the future.