Negotiating with the Islamic Republic: Reza Pahlavi

Editor's note: This guy seems to know what he's talking about in this speech from his website...

Prior to concluding my remarks, let me say a few words about dialogue and engagement with the clerical regime. While such an approach is, as I just said, being advocated by a main current of opinion, there is another extreme who argue for the military option in the shape of military strikes, even all-out war. I have time and again expressed my firm opposition to any military solution. Moreover, the current talk of war could alienate public opinion inside my country and even unite it behind a much despised regime. Iranians in their great majority have friendly feelings towards the United States and the West. Therefore, it is important that they should not be let down.There is no doubt that dialogue must be privileged in all circumstances. But those who confuse the process with purpose and view negotiations as a panacea are in for disappointment. Henry Kissinger once rightly pointed out that "diplomacy never operates in a vacuum;" it succeeds when the parties arrive at a frame of mind or at a realization that the risks involved in non-negotiation outweigh benefits of preserving one's original position. The process of give-and-take that results from negotiation is incidental to that paramount realization. Have the ruling mullahs reached that mental threshold? The answer in my judgment is negative, although a resolute global strategy – short of resort to military action – could transform the current mindset. A few years ago we saw such a transformation in the attitude of Colonel Muamar Qaddafi in Libya.But here, I want to emphasize the following: I should like to strongly point out that no durable settlement of dispute with the Islamic Republic can ever be achieved, should that settlement be reached at the expense of the Iranian people. In clarifying this point even further, I must stress that while Iran’s nuclear ambitions are at present, the focus of international attention and scrutiny, most Iranians are hoping that the current level of unprecedented pressures will not only help end the current threat which the clerical regime is posing to regional and international security, but to also usher in a new era where notions such as freedom, democracy and human rights are all fully adhered to by a responsible government that is both of the people and committed to the future welfare of the people.My country, Iran, is youthful in its demographic properties, rich with a multi millennia culture and an alive and vibrant society. In our defiance of the ruling theocracy, my compatriots need and deserve all the moral help and support they can get in order to bring about fundamental change by establishing a system of governance that is in keeping with the imperatives of our time: a secular democracy in place of the current ruling theocracy. I thank you for your patience.