The first American journalist to interview Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last night described the relationship between the United States and Iran as a troubled marriage, with many outside parties trying to either reunite the two or break them apart.
Journalist Barbara Slavin, author of Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the U.S., and the Twisted Path to Confrontation spoke to about 30 people at Barnes ‘ Noble at Boston University about the past, present and future of U.S.-Iran relations.
Slavin, a senior diplomatic reporter for USA Today since 1996, has traveled to Iran six times and was the first U.S. reporter to interview Ahmadinejad after he took office in 2005. Ahmadinejad is known for questioning the Holocaust and supporting nuclear weapons programs.
“There’s no possibility of stability in the Middle East without working with the Iranians,” she said.
Slavin said the rocky relationship between the two countries is one of the most serious foreign policy issues facing voters next year.
“Young people need to make up their minds,” she said. “They need to write letters to their congressmen. They need to pay attention now before George W. Bush does another stupid thing.”
Slavin cited a recent poll that states 52 percent of Americans would support an attack on Iran to prevent the development of nuclear weapons. She called this statistic “horrific.”
“People have to understand the Iranian mentality before they get so terrified,” she said.
For the upcoming 2008 presidential election, Slavin endorsed U.S. Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) as the best candidate to improve relations between the countries.
“Obama is the only one to have the courage to say he would be open to aggressive personal diplomacy,” she said. “Clinton dismissed this as naive, but what’s naive about it? Iran needs a Democrat who is pro-engagement. They’re longing for a president who will talk to them.”
The lecture closed with audience questions about the indifference of young Americans toward foreign issues.
“If people don’t buy newspapers, [newspapers] can’t afford foreign correspondents and they can’t provide proper coverage,” Slavin said. “It’s going to diminish what we know about the world.”
School of Medicine laboratory manager Liz Schuller, who attended the event, said she was surprised by the diversity of the audience, comprised of people of many different ages.
“She had a well-thought out argument about our presence in Iran,” Schuller said.
“We wanted to provide a dialogue with someone who knows about the situation for people who wanted to learn, and in a really small way maybe improve relations between the U.S. and Iran,” said event manager Jeanne Haight.
