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Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran, and the Triumph of Diplomacy
This timely book focuses on President Obama's deeply considered strategy toward Iran's nuclear program and reveals how the historic agreement of 2015 broke the persistent stalemate in negotiations that had blocked earlier efforts. The deal accomplished two major feats in one stroke: it averted the threat of war with Iran and prevented the possibility of an Iranian nuclear bomb. Trita Parsi, a Middle East foreign policy expert who advised the Obama White House throughout the talks and had access to decision-makers and diplomats on the U.S. and Iranian sides alike, examines every facet of a triumph that could become as important and consequential as Nixon's rapprochement with China. Drawing from more than seventy-five in-depth interviews with key decision-makers, including Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif and U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, this is the first authoritative account of President Obama's signature foreign policy achievement.
472 pages, Hardcover
Published August 1, 2017
35 people are currently reading
490 people want to read
About the author
Trita Parsi
10 books56 followersTrita Parsi (Persian: تریتا پارسی) is the founder and current president of the National Iranian American Council, and author of Treacherous Alliance and A Single Roll of the Dice.
Born in Iran to a Zoroastrian family, Parsi moved with his family to Sweden at the age of 4 to escape the political repression in Iran. His father was an outspoken academic who was jailed under the reign of the Shah and later under Ayatollah Khomeini's Islamic Republic. Parsi earned a Master's Degree in International Relations at Uppsala University and a second Master's Degree in Economics at Stockholm School of Economics. As an adult, Parsi moved to the United States and studied foreign policy at the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies where he received his Ph.D. in International Relations.
Early in his career Parsi worked for the Swedish Permanent Mission to the UN in New York, where he served in the Security Council, handling the affairs of Afghanistan, Iraq, Tajikistan, and Western Sahara, and on the General Assembly's Third Committee, addressing human rights in Iran, Afghanistan, Myanmar and Iraq.
He has served as an adjunct professor of International Relations at Johns Hopkins University SAIS, an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute and as a Policy Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington DC.
Fluent in Persian, English, and Swedish, Parsi carries Iranian and Swedish passports, but he is not a citizen of the United States, where he lives as a permanent resident.
In 2002, Parsi closed down the IIC and founded the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), whose stated purpose was "to enable Iranian Americans to condemn the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks" and, later, to provide a "grass-roots group aimed at strengthening their voice." Through the organization, he supports engagement between the US and Iran in belief that it "would enhance our [U.S.] national security by helping to stabilize the Middle East and bolster the moderates in Iran." On the group's formation, he commented, "We realized that our primary thing that separates the Iranian-American community from the Jewish-American community, the Arab-American community, the Armenian-American community is that the Iranian-American community has shunned political participation."
In 2007, Yale University Press published Treacherous Alliance The Secret Dealings of Israel Iran and the United States. Parsi's work is an expansion of his 2006 Ph.D. dissertation written at Johns Hopkins University under the supervision of his Ph.D. adviser Francis Fukuyama. The book "takes a closer look at the complicated triangular relations between Israel, Iran, and the United States that continue to shape the future of the Middle East." The book basically argues that the struggle between Israel and Iran is not ideological but strategic.
In the 2012 book A Single Roll of the Dice Obama's Diplomacy with Iran, Parsi's thesis is that US-Iran relations are in a stalemate caused by institutionalized enmity: "The thirty-year old US-Iran enmity is no longer a phenomenon; it is an institution." He argues that the way forth is through sustained diplomacy that he considers "the only policy that remains largely unexplored and that has a likelihood of achieving results amounting to more than kicking the can down the road."
Treacherous Alliance received the 2010 Grawemeyer Award from the University of Louisville, given for "Ideas Improving World Order." Treacherous Alliance also won the 2008 Arthur Ross Silver Medallion from the Council on Foreign Relations, which described it as a "unique and important book" that "takes a closer look at the complicated triangular relations between Israel, Iran, and the United States that continue to shape the future of the Middle East."
A Single Roll of the Dice: Obama's Diplomacy with Iran was selected by Foreign Affairs as the Best Book of 2012.
Born in Iran to a Zoroastrian family, Parsi moved with his family to Sweden at the age of 4 to escape the political repression in Iran. His father was an outspoken academic who was jailed under the reign of the Shah and later under Ayatollah Khomeini's Islamic Republic. Parsi earned a Master's Degree in International Relations at Uppsala University and a second Master's Degree in Economics at Stockholm School of Economics. As an adult, Parsi moved to the United States and studied foreign policy at the Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies where he received his Ph.D. in International Relations.
Early in his career Parsi worked for the Swedish Permanent Mission to the UN in New York, where he served in the Security Council, handling the affairs of Afghanistan, Iraq, Tajikistan, and Western Sahara, and on the General Assembly's Third Committee, addressing human rights in Iran, Afghanistan, Myanmar and Iraq.
He has served as an adjunct professor of International Relations at Johns Hopkins University SAIS, an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute and as a Policy Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington DC.
Fluent in Persian, English, and Swedish, Parsi carries Iranian and Swedish passports, but he is not a citizen of the United States, where he lives as a permanent resident.
In 2002, Parsi closed down the IIC and founded the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), whose stated purpose was "to enable Iranian Americans to condemn the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks" and, later, to provide a "grass-roots group aimed at strengthening their voice." Through the organization, he supports engagement between the US and Iran in belief that it "would enhance our [U.S.] national security by helping to stabilize the Middle East and bolster the moderates in Iran." On the group's formation, he commented, "We realized that our primary thing that separates the Iranian-American community from the Jewish-American community, the Arab-American community, the Armenian-American community is that the Iranian-American community has shunned political participation."
In 2007, Yale University Press published Treacherous Alliance The Secret Dealings of Israel Iran and the United States. Parsi's work is an expansion of his 2006 Ph.D. dissertation written at Johns Hopkins University under the supervision of his Ph.D. adviser Francis Fukuyama. The book "takes a closer look at the complicated triangular relations between Israel, Iran, and the United States that continue to shape the future of the Middle East." The book basically argues that the struggle between Israel and Iran is not ideological but strategic.
In the 2012 book A Single Roll of the Dice Obama's Diplomacy with Iran, Parsi's thesis is that US-Iran relations are in a stalemate caused by institutionalized enmity: "The thirty-year old US-Iran enmity is no longer a phenomenon; it is an institution." He argues that the way forth is through sustained diplomacy that he considers "the only policy that remains largely unexplored and that has a likelihood of achieving results amounting to more than kicking the can down the road."
Treacherous Alliance received the 2010 Grawemeyer Award from the University of Louisville, given for "Ideas Improving World Order." Treacherous Alliance also won the 2008 Arthur Ross Silver Medallion from the Council on Foreign Relations, which described it as a "unique and important book" that "takes a closer look at the complicated triangular relations between Israel, Iran, and the United States that continue to shape the future of the Middle East."
A Single Roll of the Dice: Obama's Diplomacy with Iran was selected by Foreign Affairs as the Best Book of 2012.
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January 9, 2020
Losing an Enemy is now a profoundly depressing book, being an extensive history of an agreement that could have started erasing fifty years of bad blood between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States. I say “could have”, because as of January 2020, that agreement is about as healthy as Qasem Soleimani. How great a setback his assassination proves to peace remains to be seen. Losing an Enemy is a thorough review of how the Joint Plan of Action (“the Iran deal”) triumphed over a half-century of enmity, and over the particular stresses of the 21st century. Those who persist in reading it — the sheer amount of dickering that the deal involved could test the most patient reader — will end with a better understanding of how much was at stake, how much was accomplished, and now — how much has been lost thanks to the present administration’s unique contempt for what it represents.
Parsi begins with a review of Iranian-American relations, which — while poisoned by the Iranian revolution and its aftermath — declined precipitously in the 1990s when a rivalry began between Israel and Iran for regional domination following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the destruction of the Iraqi army during the Gulf War. Israel and Iran hadn’t been on friendly terms since the shah’s ouster, but they had a common enemy in their hostile Arab neighbors, In the 1990s, however, Israel began developing better relations with its more immediate neighbors, and focusing its ire toward Iran – whose size, population, stability, and official contempt for Israel made it the tiny democracy’s most potent rival. Iran, similarly viewing Israel as its rival, sought to undermine the Israel-Arab peace efforts as best it could by funding groups like Hezbollah. American involvement in those peace efforts, coupled with pressure from Israel and Saudi Arabia, cooled any diplomatic interest in Iran. It became, in DC’s eyes, ever-more a pariah – so much so that George W. Bush included it in an axis of evil along with Iraq and North Korea. Whatever material support or intelligence it lent toward the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, Iran was a nation written off by the DC establishment.
That changed with the election of Barack Obama, who was determined to move the United States away from its ruinously expensive and distracting policies in the middle east – to better focus on responding on Asia’s boom — as well as to focus on engagement with the global community, moving away from the siege mentality DC had adopted during the Iraq war. Obama’s dream of escaping the graveyard of empires was effectively frustrated by the Arab spring, which demanded a response…but with Iran, at least, he was able to make some headway. Obama’s efforts at re-engaging with Iran were slow to bear fruit, due in part to the civil war in Syria and its relation tensions, but even after a failed fuel swap deal in 2010, a channel opened courtesy of the Sultan of Oman. Safe from Saudi and Israel dissent, the framework of a deal began to emerge – the details to be painstakingly hammered out once the rest of the P5+1 were caught up.
The Joint Plan of Action happened because both those in DC and Tehran were looking for an escape from the on-ramp to war. It was possible because of a handful of gifted, determined men – two leaders who believed in diplomacy and the possibility of escaping the past. stellar support from both countries, (Javad Zarif, John Kerry, and William Burns), and Sultan Qaboos of Oman, who made himself a bridge for meeting in the middle. Will circumstances ever realign to make such a thing possible again?
Despite the fact that the JPAC seems a dead agreement now, Losing an Enemy is worth reading — worth reading to understand the reality that Iranians and Americans have common interests, that there are people on both sides who want to make pursuing those interests together happens. It’s worth reading to know why we keep getting derailed – both the malign influence of the House of Saud and Israel, and a healthy mix of obstinance and arrogance on the parts of both Tehran and DC. But most of all it’s worth reading to better understand how deep Iran’s pride really is – how they were willing to pursue nuclear power not because it made financial sense, but because it asserted their independence – how they were willing to submit to a ruinous war, whether on Bush or Obama’s watch, to defend their pride. Even as the DC sinks to the level of porcine ISIS, threatening the destruction of Iranian culture sites, Javad Zarif pointed to the example of history, where Iran had been conquered by the likes of Alexander, the Arabs, and still more – only to rise again and again. There isn’t a word in Farsi, it seems, for “submit”. The United States would do well to recognize that in Iran it faces not some pretend country like Afghanistan or Iraq, with arbitrary borders drawn by long-dead Brits and Frenchmen, but a centuries-old nation with a long, rich history and which will not bow.
Parsi begins with a review of Iranian-American relations, which — while poisoned by the Iranian revolution and its aftermath — declined precipitously in the 1990s when a rivalry began between Israel and Iran for regional domination following the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the destruction of the Iraqi army during the Gulf War. Israel and Iran hadn’t been on friendly terms since the shah’s ouster, but they had a common enemy in their hostile Arab neighbors, In the 1990s, however, Israel began developing better relations with its more immediate neighbors, and focusing its ire toward Iran – whose size, population, stability, and official contempt for Israel made it the tiny democracy’s most potent rival. Iran, similarly viewing Israel as its rival, sought to undermine the Israel-Arab peace efforts as best it could by funding groups like Hezbollah. American involvement in those peace efforts, coupled with pressure from Israel and Saudi Arabia, cooled any diplomatic interest in Iran. It became, in DC’s eyes, ever-more a pariah – so much so that George W. Bush included it in an axis of evil along with Iraq and North Korea. Whatever material support or intelligence it lent toward the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, Iran was a nation written off by the DC establishment.
That changed with the election of Barack Obama, who was determined to move the United States away from its ruinously expensive and distracting policies in the middle east – to better focus on responding on Asia’s boom — as well as to focus on engagement with the global community, moving away from the siege mentality DC had adopted during the Iraq war. Obama’s dream of escaping the graveyard of empires was effectively frustrated by the Arab spring, which demanded a response…but with Iran, at least, he was able to make some headway. Obama’s efforts at re-engaging with Iran were slow to bear fruit, due in part to the civil war in Syria and its relation tensions, but even after a failed fuel swap deal in 2010, a channel opened courtesy of the Sultan of Oman. Safe from Saudi and Israel dissent, the framework of a deal began to emerge – the details to be painstakingly hammered out once the rest of the P5+1 were caught up.
The Joint Plan of Action happened because both those in DC and Tehran were looking for an escape from the on-ramp to war. It was possible because of a handful of gifted, determined men – two leaders who believed in diplomacy and the possibility of escaping the past. stellar support from both countries, (Javad Zarif, John Kerry, and William Burns), and Sultan Qaboos of Oman, who made himself a bridge for meeting in the middle. Will circumstances ever realign to make such a thing possible again?
Despite the fact that the JPAC seems a dead agreement now, Losing an Enemy is worth reading — worth reading to understand the reality that Iranians and Americans have common interests, that there are people on both sides who want to make pursuing those interests together happens. It’s worth reading to know why we keep getting derailed – both the malign influence of the House of Saud and Israel, and a healthy mix of obstinance and arrogance on the parts of both Tehran and DC. But most of all it’s worth reading to better understand how deep Iran’s pride really is – how they were willing to pursue nuclear power not because it made financial sense, but because it asserted their independence – how they were willing to submit to a ruinous war, whether on Bush or Obama’s watch, to defend their pride. Even as the DC sinks to the level of porcine ISIS, threatening the destruction of Iranian culture sites, Javad Zarif pointed to the example of history, where Iran had been conquered by the likes of Alexander, the Arabs, and still more – only to rise again and again. There isn’t a word in Farsi, it seems, for “submit”. The United States would do well to recognize that in Iran it faces not some pretend country like Afghanistan or Iraq, with arbitrary borders drawn by long-dead Brits and Frenchmen, but a centuries-old nation with a long, rich history and which will not bow.
February 23, 2018
Trita Parsi, fluent in English and Farsi and acquainted with all the major players in the diplomacy that took three years to produce the Iran nuclear deal, is uniquely qualified to write this account. He has an intimate knowledge of both US and Iranian politics. It is his step-by-step focus on the evolution of the “deal” that helps make the book so informative, and it is the inclusion of human details that makes it so interesting.
Parsi takes us into the minds of the negotiators for Obama as well as Rouhani. Both sides of the story are presented with equal understanding. The book explains disputes over low-enriched and high-enriched uranium, kilograms of stockpiles, nuclear bomb “breakout” capability, “snapback sanctions,” and, most importantly, explains why the US and Europe allowed Iran to enrich uranium at all.
Since Parsi knows and had contact with US, Iranian, Russian, and other diplomats and negotiators, he can humanize the discussions. For example, he says Saeed Jalili, an early negotiator who later ran unsuccessfully against Rouhani, was known for “his tendency to hold long monologues addressing the many injustices Iran had suffered at the hand of Western powers.” Of the US negotiator Talwar Puneet, the only White House staffer who had actually visited Iran, he says, “the respect Iranians showed Puneet was noticeable.” The Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, we’re told, after a last minute objection by the French foreign minister threatened to scuttle the talks, got so angry he “was spotted entering the hotel bar ordering a full bottle of vodka.”
For the most part, the characterizations of the better known negotiators reflect popular perceptions. Javad Zarif, currently Iran’s foreign minister, “had a likability that’s off the charts,” yet we’re told he’s also known for his temper. And John Kerry, with a “reputation for being unflappable,” is also described as once losing his temper and slamming “his fist so hard on the table that his pen flew across it and hit one of the Iranian negotiators.” Not that the negotiations often reached points like this. Parsi says that “even at the height of their tense exchanges, the negotiators could at the same time only be moments away from laughter. In fact, laughter was often what saved them from diplomatic dead ends.”
I had presumed the nuclear negotiations were based on the countries’ desire for strength and safety, and to a large extent this was true. But Parsi’s narrative views countries, especially Iran, as people who are susceptible to slights and having their feelings hurt and taking offense. Countries, his thesis goes, see each other as “rivals” for prestige and the world’s attention. They want to “take center stage” and assert their “right to play the role of a regional power.” According to Parsi, it was the Obama administration’s understanding that Iran wanted to be respected, recognized as an important country, and included among legitimate nations that enabled reaching this agreement that stands as one of the greatest diplomatic achievements of modern times.
Parsi takes us into the minds of the negotiators for Obama as well as Rouhani. Both sides of the story are presented with equal understanding. The book explains disputes over low-enriched and high-enriched uranium, kilograms of stockpiles, nuclear bomb “breakout” capability, “snapback sanctions,” and, most importantly, explains why the US and Europe allowed Iran to enrich uranium at all.
Since Parsi knows and had contact with US, Iranian, Russian, and other diplomats and negotiators, he can humanize the discussions. For example, he says Saeed Jalili, an early negotiator who later ran unsuccessfully against Rouhani, was known for “his tendency to hold long monologues addressing the many injustices Iran had suffered at the hand of Western powers.” Of the US negotiator Talwar Puneet, the only White House staffer who had actually visited Iran, he says, “the respect Iranians showed Puneet was noticeable.” The Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, we’re told, after a last minute objection by the French foreign minister threatened to scuttle the talks, got so angry he “was spotted entering the hotel bar ordering a full bottle of vodka.”
For the most part, the characterizations of the better known negotiators reflect popular perceptions. Javad Zarif, currently Iran’s foreign minister, “had a likability that’s off the charts,” yet we’re told he’s also known for his temper. And John Kerry, with a “reputation for being unflappable,” is also described as once losing his temper and slamming “his fist so hard on the table that his pen flew across it and hit one of the Iranian negotiators.” Not that the negotiations often reached points like this. Parsi says that “even at the height of their tense exchanges, the negotiators could at the same time only be moments away from laughter. In fact, laughter was often what saved them from diplomatic dead ends.”
I had presumed the nuclear negotiations were based on the countries’ desire for strength and safety, and to a large extent this was true. But Parsi’s narrative views countries, especially Iran, as people who are susceptible to slights and having their feelings hurt and taking offense. Countries, his thesis goes, see each other as “rivals” for prestige and the world’s attention. They want to “take center stage” and assert their “right to play the role of a regional power.” According to Parsi, it was the Obama administration’s understanding that Iran wanted to be respected, recognized as an important country, and included among legitimate nations that enabled reaching this agreement that stands as one of the greatest diplomatic achievements of modern times.
April 29, 2021
If this were a just world this would be one of the most read books on the last 20 years of US foreign policy. Because unlike all those fevered meditations on Islam and the West, and those documents of wars we won only to lose the peace... this book documents a success. The book is Trita Parsi's first draft of the history of the negotiation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), more commonly known as the Iran Nuclear Deal. Even after Trump's vandalism, the the deal has kept the US and Iran out of war for half a decade now, and has of course averted an Iranian nuclear bomb as well.
The book makes a solid case for the deal, which isn't really all that hard to make if you look at the subject honestly. The JCPOA is one of the most sweepingly invasive arms control deals in diplomatic history, and it's completely one-sided in the US's favor. Beyond the deal itself, the book is much more concerned with the processes and events that made the deal possible. This is diplomatic history, a name that seems to promise boredom to most, but Parsi manages to make it gripping. From Teheran to Geneva and Oman to DC and back again, Parsi documents the personnel and the choices that made history.
As is appropriate the book sort of telescopes. Early chapters carefully cover decades of the relationship between the United States, Iran and Israel. By the end of the book it feels like each week in 2015 gets its own chapter. The complexity of the story requires it, not just focusing on the diplomats but on the political concerns of a diverse array of actors within the US and Iran. Parsi is clearly pretty enamored of the deal, and his enthusiasm is infectious. He makes it crystal clear that the deal is the main reason we are not currently enmeshed in yet another trillion dollar war with Iran.
For me the book was probably most clarifying on the topic of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The man is a vandal. In the name of his own political success he has wrecked the US Israeli relationship (with at least one party anyway), and worked assiduously, as he still works today, to bring about an another horrific decade of war in the Middle East. The Israeli obsession with Iran has always been mostly playacting. The Israeli establishment is much more terrified of not having enemies than it has ever been scared of Iran. But at the outset at least, as Parsi ably documents, there was at least a noble reason for kicking up a rivalry with Iran: there was no way to convince the Israeli public to go for peace with Palestine without some greater threat. So, to win the Oslo accords, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres gussied up an "existential threat" from Iran, much to the surprise of the Iranians who had been tentatively reaching out to the Israelis in the early 1990s.
The Israeli and US quest for an enemy to justify their defense budgets bore great fruit. Iran is prickly about its dignity and decided to match insult for insult. But Iran was always interested in making a deal. Over and over again throughout the 1990s and 00s, Iran proposed deal after deal, and successive US presidential administrations slapped all of them down at Israel's urging. It makes for incredibly frustrating reading. Reading this book, I'm half convinced that Iran and the United States would be great friends today if it weren't for Netanyahu personally. The man has been claiming that Iran is six months away from a bomb for 20 years now.
I've long had the sense that the emperor was without clothes when it came to the conflict between the US and Iran. This book confirms that suspicion over and over. What Parsi documents, which is sadly so rare, is that people in the Obama and Rouhani administrations were able to see that lack of clothing as well, and were able to rise above it. Here's hoping that the JCPOA, this rare, precious achievement, is renewed by the Biden administration, as Joe Biden promised on the campaign trail.
The book makes a solid case for the deal, which isn't really all that hard to make if you look at the subject honestly. The JCPOA is one of the most sweepingly invasive arms control deals in diplomatic history, and it's completely one-sided in the US's favor. Beyond the deal itself, the book is much more concerned with the processes and events that made the deal possible. This is diplomatic history, a name that seems to promise boredom to most, but Parsi manages to make it gripping. From Teheran to Geneva and Oman to DC and back again, Parsi documents the personnel and the choices that made history.
As is appropriate the book sort of telescopes. Early chapters carefully cover decades of the relationship between the United States, Iran and Israel. By the end of the book it feels like each week in 2015 gets its own chapter. The complexity of the story requires it, not just focusing on the diplomats but on the political concerns of a diverse array of actors within the US and Iran. Parsi is clearly pretty enamored of the deal, and his enthusiasm is infectious. He makes it crystal clear that the deal is the main reason we are not currently enmeshed in yet another trillion dollar war with Iran.
For me the book was probably most clarifying on the topic of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The man is a vandal. In the name of his own political success he has wrecked the US Israeli relationship (with at least one party anyway), and worked assiduously, as he still works today, to bring about an another horrific decade of war in the Middle East. The Israeli obsession with Iran has always been mostly playacting. The Israeli establishment is much more terrified of not having enemies than it has ever been scared of Iran. But at the outset at least, as Parsi ably documents, there was at least a noble reason for kicking up a rivalry with Iran: there was no way to convince the Israeli public to go for peace with Palestine without some greater threat. So, to win the Oslo accords, Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres gussied up an "existential threat" from Iran, much to the surprise of the Iranians who had been tentatively reaching out to the Israelis in the early 1990s.
The Israeli and US quest for an enemy to justify their defense budgets bore great fruit. Iran is prickly about its dignity and decided to match insult for insult. But Iran was always interested in making a deal. Over and over again throughout the 1990s and 00s, Iran proposed deal after deal, and successive US presidential administrations slapped all of them down at Israel's urging. It makes for incredibly frustrating reading. Reading this book, I'm half convinced that Iran and the United States would be great friends today if it weren't for Netanyahu personally. The man has been claiming that Iran is six months away from a bomb for 20 years now.
I've long had the sense that the emperor was without clothes when it came to the conflict between the US and Iran. This book confirms that suspicion over and over. What Parsi documents, which is sadly so rare, is that people in the Obama and Rouhani administrations were able to see that lack of clothing as well, and were able to rise above it. Here's hoping that the JCPOA, this rare, precious achievement, is renewed by the Biden administration, as Joe Biden promised on the campaign trail.
Want to read
October 13, 2017"The Iran nuclear deal eliminated risk of war. If you undo the pact, you're putting that option back on the table," Trita Parsi.
Trita Parsi, apropos the New Comprehensive Iran policy of the Trump administration, predicts a "significant escalation in the region".
Trita Parsi, apropos the New Comprehensive Iran policy of the Trump administration, predicts a "significant escalation in the region".
December 3, 2017
This might be my favorite IR book I've ever read now. An indispensable insiders-account of the historic, monumental, and war-avoiding multilateral agreement, the JCPOA, between the P5+1 and Iran.
September 10, 2017
amazing book. and i fucking love diplomats. lets hope it lasts through our current shit government. and lol bibi.
February 13, 2019
عمل رائع ومحترف قام به تريتا بارزي. الأجواء الجيوسياسية التي سبقت المفاوضات بين الولايات المتحدة وإيران، والتي مهدت للقناة السرية المباشرة بين الجانبين، وكيفية نقل المسودة المقترحة الى مجموعة "خمسة زائد واحد". العقبات التي كادت أن تؤدي الى فشل المفاوضات، خاص�� بعدم موافقة إسرائيل والسعودية والمتشددين في ايران واللبوبي اليهودي داخل الولايات المتحدة.
تيريتا بارزي اثبت من خلال كتابه أنه محترف واستقصائي، مناهض للدولة الثيوقراطية وشكل النظام، لكنه في الوقت نفسه تجد له نفس قومي إيراني.
أنصح بقراءته.
تيريتا بارزي اثبت من خلال كتابه أنه محترف واستقصائي، مناهض للدولة الثيوقراطية وشكل النظام، لكنه في الوقت نفسه تجد له نفس قومي إيراني.
أنصح بقراءته.
December 14, 2018
Trita Parsi wrote an insightful account on how the nuclear deal was finalised, not only how things were agreed in 2015 but the background events that were taking place. He brought us closer to the mindsets of both the Iranian and US policy makers, the difficulties both faced, the external factors, and the curse of history that caused mistrust among the two sides.
July 26, 2025
“Our President is going to start a war with Iran because he has absolutely no ability to negotiate” — Donald Trump, (2011)
In light of recent events I thought I’d read something on the JCPOA Iranian nuclear deal orchestrated by President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry. As much as I find Obama to be one of the worst presidents ever, this deal was a triumph of diplomacy.
However, this deal was doomed to fail because there’s nothing Benjamin Netanyahu hates more than peace in the Middle East.
The way he and the American Israel lobby (AIPAC) fought the peace negotiations in tandem with a handful of Zionist Republicans was rather disturbing. Speaker of the House John Boehner, in an unprecedented act of subversion, invited Netanyahu to speak before the Congress to castigate Obama’s deal, and he did so without telling the Democrats or the White House. Congressman Tom Corton of Arkansas, a perennial AIPAC beneficiary and Zionist lapdog, wrote a letter with 46 other senators (behind the back of the President) to Iranian leaders stating that even if a deal is confirmed, the Republicans in the Senate will squash the deal once they have the power to do so.
It’s outstanding how much power AIPAC and Netanyahu have wielded in American politics for the last few decades. What makes this JCPOA deal so remarkable is how the Obama administration was able to pull it off in the face of Israeli hostility. One is convinced that Israel is our fourth branch of government after reading this (and many other books more directly on the subject).
Obama expressed interest in shifting US foreign policy focus from the Middle East to the East, towards China, Japan, and Russia. The JCPOA was a step in that direction. Netanyahu and Trump have shown that they want to continue the never ending Middle Eastern conflicts in order to bolster Israeli hegemony in the region. Iran is the last power to topple in order to achieve that goal. To anyone paying attention, the Iranian conflict is not over.
In light of recent events I thought I’d read something on the JCPOA Iranian nuclear deal orchestrated by President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry. As much as I find Obama to be one of the worst presidents ever, this deal was a triumph of diplomacy.
However, this deal was doomed to fail because there’s nothing Benjamin Netanyahu hates more than peace in the Middle East.
The way he and the American Israel lobby (AIPAC) fought the peace negotiations in tandem with a handful of Zionist Republicans was rather disturbing. Speaker of the House John Boehner, in an unprecedented act of subversion, invited Netanyahu to speak before the Congress to castigate Obama’s deal, and he did so without telling the Democrats or the White House. Congressman Tom Corton of Arkansas, a perennial AIPAC beneficiary and Zionist lapdog, wrote a letter with 46 other senators (behind the back of the President) to Iranian leaders stating that even if a deal is confirmed, the Republicans in the Senate will squash the deal once they have the power to do so.
It’s outstanding how much power AIPAC and Netanyahu have wielded in American politics for the last few decades. What makes this JCPOA deal so remarkable is how the Obama administration was able to pull it off in the face of Israeli hostility. One is convinced that Israel is our fourth branch of government after reading this (and many other books more directly on the subject).
Obama expressed interest in shifting US foreign policy focus from the Middle East to the East, towards China, Japan, and Russia. The JCPOA was a step in that direction. Netanyahu and Trump have shown that they want to continue the never ending Middle Eastern conflicts in order to bolster Israeli hegemony in the region. Iran is the last power to topple in order to achieve that goal. To anyone paying attention, the Iranian conflict is not over.
December 10, 2017
Reading this book, it's impossible to not develop an appreciation for the effort American diplomats, led by John Kerry, put forth in order to end the Iranian nuclear weapons program. The sanctions put in place by the Obama Administration succeeded in driving Iran to the table, but it was the acceptance of principle of Iranian civilian nuclear enrichment (a red line for Iran) that made peace possible. Through long sessions of negotiation, Kerry and the other P5 ministers were able to achieve what was previously unthinkable; an enforceable deal which halts Iran's nuclear weapons program for 15 years, while helping to bring the large Middle Eastern power back into the "community of nations".
The second, and perhaps more impressive, part of this story begins after the signing of the agreement, when the White House orchestrated a masterful political performance in order to circumvent AIPAC and Israeli PM Netanyahu and prevent the Republican Senate from scuttling the deal.
If the deal is allowed to succeed, look for some Noble Peace Prizes to be awarded in the coming years.
The second, and perhaps more impressive, part of this story begins after the signing of the agreement, when the White House orchestrated a masterful political performance in order to circumvent AIPAC and Israeli PM Netanyahu and prevent the Republican Senate from scuttling the deal.
If the deal is allowed to succeed, look for some Noble Peace Prizes to be awarded in the coming years.
July 25, 2017
H-Diplo/ISSF Book Review of Trita Parsi, Losing an Enemy: Obama, Iran, and the Triumph of Diplomacy (Yale University Press, 2017).
H-Diplo/ISSF Editors: Robert Jervis and Diane Labrosse
H-Diplo/ISSF Web and Production Editor: George Fujii
Reviewed by Gary Sick, Columbia University
If journalism is the first draft of history, then Trita Parsi’s account of the negotiation of the Iran nuclear deal (the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – JCPOA) is a solid second draft. Written in a conversational tone, with plenty of documentation but no jargon, it is a highly readable chronological account of the diplomatic encounters and maneuvers that dominated U.S. Middle East politics in President Barack Obama’s second term. Parsi is the President of the National Iranian American Council, an advocacy organization in Washington DC, and he followed the diplomatic action moment by moment. This book is a companion piece and continuation to Parsi’s two previous books: Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States (2007); and A Single Roll of the Dice: Obama’s Diplomacy with Iran (2012).
The strength of this account is its first-hand insight into the politics and strategies of Israel, Iran, and the United States, the same three protagonists that featured in Parsi’s dissertation and first book. He revisits some of the same sources as in his previous work, but here expands his scope to include the latest cast of characters involved in the marathon three-year negotiation of this unique non-proliferation agreement. Parsi conducted serial interviews with key figures in his three key countries. He was physically present outside the room during many of the critical negotiating sessions, and he was briefed regularly by the Obama administration as part of its public outreach. He was also part of an advocacy network lobbying for the JCPOA and participated in the policy battle in Washington essentially as an insider.
As indicated by the title of his book, Parsi leaves no doubt about his own position. He supported the negotiation process at every point and reveled in its successful completion. His own background as a thoroughly Americanized Iranian expatriate, who is the founding president of an organization that advocates for better understanding of Iran, will inevitably be cited as evidence of his bias. Those who see the JCPOA as a terrible mistake will regard Parsi’s account as a whitewash. They will be wrong.
Parsi adds an important element to the story. He listens to the Iranian side as well as the American side, and he explains Iran’s negotiating strategy. Very few Americans, even those who followed the JCPOA negotiations with some interest, will have heard a straightforward analysis of how Iran approached the negotiations, the internal politics that greatly complicated its efforts, and the concessions Iran made in pursuit of its own national interests. Based on my own observations over the same period, I think Parsi gets it right.
Similarly, Parsi offers a forthright evaluation of Israel’s strategies, particularly the obstructive role played by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Parsi thinks the Israeli PM was wrong, and so do many of the top former security officials in Israel, as Parsi elaborates at length on pages 156-158. Again, this part of the story, which is critical to understanding the complex politics of the American side, received only sporadic coverage in the American media. Those who share Netanyahu’s dark vision of the Iranian threat will see this aspect of the book as politically biased. It might better be seen as a corrective to an existing bias. Parsi’s analytical construct of “losing an enemy,” applies to Israel even more strongly than to the United States.
The very argument that “losing an enemy” is a political hindrance and strategic obstacle will no doubt strike some as excessively glib. If one accepts Netanyahu’s alarms that Iran is the greatest threat to world peace and an existential threat to Israel, perhaps so. But those who agree with the Israeli general staff in its latest ranking of strategic threats to Israel, where a nuclear Iran features not at all, might be led to wonder about the perceptual gap. Parsi believes that the Netanyahu threat assessment is more politics than reality. That is not a view that gets a lot of attention in the U.S. media, and Parsi deals with it in a forthright and non-confrontational way (319-322). Some may find that refreshing; others in this highly partisan environment will not.
But Parsi is no prophet. This coherent but very hasty retelling of the JCPOA negotiations was scarcely out of galleys when serious questions began to be raised about the ability of the agreement to survive the Trump presidency. Clearly, this story is far from over, and the “triumph” may be short-lived. The full account will have to await a broader historical perspective, including not only whether or how the agreement survives at all, but also how it fits into the forty decades and counting of the U.S. relationship with revolutionary Iran and the broader question of U.S. intervention in the Middle East post-9/11. For that, another book will be required.
Gary Sick teaches U.S. foreign policy in the Persian Gulf at Columbia University and runs the Gulf2000 internet project.
H-Diplo/ISSF Editors: Robert Jervis and Diane Labrosse
H-Diplo/ISSF Web and Production Editor: George Fujii
Reviewed by Gary Sick, Columbia University
If journalism is the first draft of history, then Trita Parsi’s account of the negotiation of the Iran nuclear deal (the so-called Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – JCPOA) is a solid second draft. Written in a conversational tone, with plenty of documentation but no jargon, it is a highly readable chronological account of the diplomatic encounters and maneuvers that dominated U.S. Middle East politics in President Barack Obama’s second term. Parsi is the President of the National Iranian American Council, an advocacy organization in Washington DC, and he followed the diplomatic action moment by moment. This book is a companion piece and continuation to Parsi’s two previous books: Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States (2007); and A Single Roll of the Dice: Obama’s Diplomacy with Iran (2012).
The strength of this account is its first-hand insight into the politics and strategies of Israel, Iran, and the United States, the same three protagonists that featured in Parsi’s dissertation and first book. He revisits some of the same sources as in his previous work, but here expands his scope to include the latest cast of characters involved in the marathon three-year negotiation of this unique non-proliferation agreement. Parsi conducted serial interviews with key figures in his three key countries. He was physically present outside the room during many of the critical negotiating sessions, and he was briefed regularly by the Obama administration as part of its public outreach. He was also part of an advocacy network lobbying for the JCPOA and participated in the policy battle in Washington essentially as an insider.
As indicated by the title of his book, Parsi leaves no doubt about his own position. He supported the negotiation process at every point and reveled in its successful completion. His own background as a thoroughly Americanized Iranian expatriate, who is the founding president of an organization that advocates for better understanding of Iran, will inevitably be cited as evidence of his bias. Those who see the JCPOA as a terrible mistake will regard Parsi’s account as a whitewash. They will be wrong.
Parsi adds an important element to the story. He listens to the Iranian side as well as the American side, and he explains Iran’s negotiating strategy. Very few Americans, even those who followed the JCPOA negotiations with some interest, will have heard a straightforward analysis of how Iran approached the negotiations, the internal politics that greatly complicated its efforts, and the concessions Iran made in pursuit of its own national interests. Based on my own observations over the same period, I think Parsi gets it right.
Similarly, Parsi offers a forthright evaluation of Israel’s strategies, particularly the obstructive role played by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Parsi thinks the Israeli PM was wrong, and so do many of the top former security officials in Israel, as Parsi elaborates at length on pages 156-158. Again, this part of the story, which is critical to understanding the complex politics of the American side, received only sporadic coverage in the American media. Those who share Netanyahu’s dark vision of the Iranian threat will see this aspect of the book as politically biased. It might better be seen as a corrective to an existing bias. Parsi’s analytical construct of “losing an enemy,” applies to Israel even more strongly than to the United States.
The very argument that “losing an enemy” is a political hindrance and strategic obstacle will no doubt strike some as excessively glib. If one accepts Netanyahu’s alarms that Iran is the greatest threat to world peace and an existential threat to Israel, perhaps so. But those who agree with the Israeli general staff in its latest ranking of strategic threats to Israel, where a nuclear Iran features not at all, might be led to wonder about the perceptual gap. Parsi believes that the Netanyahu threat assessment is more politics than reality. That is not a view that gets a lot of attention in the U.S. media, and Parsi deals with it in a forthright and non-confrontational way (319-322). Some may find that refreshing; others in this highly partisan environment will not.
But Parsi is no prophet. This coherent but very hasty retelling of the JCPOA negotiations was scarcely out of galleys when serious questions began to be raised about the ability of the agreement to survive the Trump presidency. Clearly, this story is far from over, and the “triumph” may be short-lived. The full account will have to await a broader historical perspective, including not only whether or how the agreement survives at all, but also how it fits into the forty decades and counting of the U.S. relationship with revolutionary Iran and the broader question of U.S. intervention in the Middle East post-9/11. For that, another book will be required.
Gary Sick teaches U.S. foreign policy in the Persian Gulf at Columbia University and runs the Gulf2000 internet project.
September 22, 2020
كتاب مهم ورائع. يروي هذا الكتاب تفاصيل الاتفاقية النووية السلمية التي تم توقيعها في عهد الرئيسين أوباما، وحسن روحاني عام 2015، والمباحثات الطويلة التي سبقتها، والعامين الذين لحقاها حتى وقت صدور الكتاب.
في بعض الأحيان تشعر أن الكاتب ليس محايداً تماماً، فهو يميل بعض الشيء لدولته إيران، لكن هذا ليس طاغياً على الكتاب، بل هو أقرب إلى الحياد.
قد تكون قراءته متعِبة قليلاً لمن هو ليس معتاداً على قراءة الكتب السياسية، لكنه مفيد جداً ويستحق القراءة.
في بعض الأحيان تشعر أن الكاتب ليس محايداً تماماً، فهو يميل بعض الشيء لدولته إيران، لكن هذا ليس طاغياً على الكتاب، بل هو أقرب إلى الحياد.
قد تكون قراءته متعِبة قليلاً لمن هو ليس معتاداً على قراءة الكتب السياسية، لكنه مفيد جداً ويستحق القراءة.
May 14, 2022
Very detailed inside look at the Iran nuclear deal of 2015. He interviewed a lot of people who had close connection to and involvement with the behind-the-scenes negotiations. It's dense and full of lots of names.
The chronology isn't straight forward, making it hard to follow sometimes. I'm a little skeptical of his assertions that it was either this deal or war. It remains to be seen how this issue will be resolved. This was published in 2017, so a lot has changed since then.
The chronology isn't straight forward, making it hard to follow sometimes. I'm a little skeptical of his assertions that it was either this deal or war. It remains to be seen how this issue will be resolved. This was published in 2017, so a lot has changed since then.
July 21, 2022
My son read this for school and highly recommended it. The writing was good and so thorough-so many lessons learned. I did skim through parts-my mind would wander-not the best time for me for an academic book but it was good
November 10, 2017
review forthcoming
April 7, 2019
Great book. The definitive story of the Iran nuclear deal negotiations.
December 28, 2023
A must read for anyone who wants to understand Iran in the 21st century.
April 17, 2025
Trita Parsi in this excellent book has explained thoroughly and convincingly how diplomacy is able to hinder a massive,dreadful and catastrophic regional war. I totally recommend it.
October 22, 2022
I finished up this book on the day Donald Trump was acquitted by the senate. I read it because I needed to learn for myself why the Iran nuclear deal was the "worst deal ever made". Well here is the truth as written by someone who witnessed the work of those dedicated people who worked hard to give diplomacy and peace a chance. It almost worked. But I am glad I read this book.
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