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traditional approach vis-a-vis my
country.”
But if Washington remains committed to
ever-tougher sanctions – and without
promising Iran that sanctions will be
lifted as part of a deal – then negotiations
are unlikely to succeed. Vali Nasr,
another former Obama administration
official with expertise on Iran, suggested
recently that there's not much more the
world can do to sanction Iran, and that
such penalties could drive Tehran to take
radical action. The regime of sanctions
against Iran over its nuclear activity
"really has reached its end," Nasr, dean of
the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced
International Studies at Johns Hopkins
University, said during the World
Economic Forum in Davos. And he
warned that unless there is a diplomatic
breakthrough — or, alternatively, an
attack on Iran — "you really are looking
at a scenario where Iran is going to rush
very quickly towards nuclear power,
because they also think, like North
Korea, that (then) you have much more
leverage to get rid of these sanctions.”

Robert Dreyfuss is an independent,
investigative journalist in the
Washington, D.C, area, who writes
frequently for The Nation, Rolling Stone,
and other publications. His blog, The

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