Talking To The Reformers

Joe Klein reports what he saw in Iran:

In truth, the reformers I spoke with seemed as unyielding as Ahmadinejad, if more politely so, when it came to discussing what Iran would be willing to concede in negotiations with the U.S. They were adamant on Iran's nuclear enrichment program, which is permitted for peaceful purposes under the nuclear nonproliferation treaty. None of them, except Mousavi, was willing to acknowledge that weaponization of uranium might be in the works and therefore be a subject for negotiation. (Mousavi told me that if such a program existed, it would be negotiable, but he didn't say, and may not know, that it actually exists.)

The reformers were unanimous in the belief that Barack Obama's conciliatory words were not enough, that the U.S. had to take palpable actions before talks would be possible. I asked each of them what steps Iran was prepared to make for peace. The answer was always the same. "It's natural that the first step should be taken by the Americans," said Karroubi, the most progressive of the four presidential candidates. "We didn't stage a coup against your elected government," he said, referring to the CIA's participation in the 1953 overthrow of the Mohammed Mossadegh government. "We have not frozen your assets. We don't have sanctions against you." (Of all the reformers, only Mousavi seemed to think that Obama's acknowledgment of the 1953 coup in his Cairo speech was a "positive step.")