Newsweek quotes South Asia Center Nonresident Senior Fellow Barbara Slavin and Nonresident Senior Fellow Richard LeBaron on the negotiations between the United States and Iran, and what a deal means for the future of relations between the two countries:
“These exchanges are just as powerful as any weapon system we sell to the Arab world, if not more,” says retired Ambassador Richard LeBaron, now a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, a Washington-based think tank. “As the [Iranian] conservatives argue against the [nuclear] accord, the buildup of civil society in Iran through exchanges creates a constituency that can push back against them.”
The same may be true on the American side. “Most Americans know very little about Iran,” says Barbara Slavin, an expert on Iran and the author of the book Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies. “It’s important for them to see that Iran is not all Revolutionary Guards and human rights abuses.”