Journal Articles

The carcass of dead policies: lessons for Obama in dealing with Iran

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The United States has spent 30 years clinging to variations of the same policy towards Iran, to no avail. 'Doing the right thing' has proved perplexing, complicated and, ultimately, elusive. In 1979, the United States struggled to come to terms with Iran's transformation from consort to adversary. Washington had difficulty fitting Iran into the hierarchy of regional and international priorities, often viewing it through the prism of its other regional concerns. Administration tensions, varying levels of dysfunction and wider governmental conflict also affected policy formulation and execution by producing different agendas, and, occasionally, a range of different assessments of US policy. Underpinning and exacerbating these problems was the fact that policymakers were doing a jigsaw with missing pieces. Two types of intelligence failures, missing and poor information and flawed interpretation, proved debilitating. A further complication was the fact that the United States and Iran engaged in a dialogue of the duff for nearly 30 years. Besides not hearing each other (and when they did, regularly misunderstanding the message), bad timing and the intervention of events conspired repeatedly to frustrate initiatives and confound a breakthrough. This case-study-based analysis of policymaking and policy explores why successive administrations have failed to 'park Iran in a better place' and offers a set of lessons for the Obama administration as it confronts this unique 'non-relationship'.

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Detail Information

Series Title

Contemporary Politics

Call Number

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Publisher

Oxon, UK : Routledge Taylor & Francis Group., 2010

Collation

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Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

13569775

Classification

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Content Type

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Media Type

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Carrier Type

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Edition

Volume 16, Issue 2 June 2010 , pages 209 - 223

Subject(s)

presidency
US Foreign Policy
Iran
Middle East
Intelligence
America
Ahmadinejad
Obama
Ayatollah

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