U.S. Security Experts Applaud Obama’s Diplomatic Efforts

November 7, 2013, Washington, D.C. – A bipartisan group of 79 former military and diplomatic leaders, intelligence officials, policymakers, and senior security experts sent a letter to the White House today, praising President Obama’s diplomatic efforts to achieve a resolution to the nuclear impasse between the international community and Iran. The signatories included PAAIA Board member Hamid Biglari, PAAIA Public Policy Advisor Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and numerous former U.S. ambassadors and high level state department officials.

The letter coincides with the start of a new round of negotiations in Geneva between Iran and the P5+1 countries today. “The hard work of diplomacy begins now,” the authors write in the letter to the president. “We support this new policy [of engagement] and pledge to help our fellow Americans appreciate the ambitious and transformative course you have chosen to build a more peaceful and more cooperative environment in the Middle East.”

The letter was published by the Iran Project, which seeks to improve official contacts between the American and Iranian governments. It was started in 2002 by the United Nations Association of the USA and Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and became an independent project under the auspices of the nonprofit organization “Foundation for a Civil Society” in 2009. 

Click here to read the letter.