http://www.lobelog.com/sanctions-and-symmetry-in-the-iran-negotiations/#more-27613

Sanctions and Symmetry in the Iran Negotiations

by Paul R. Pillar | January 12 2015
Notwithstanding the obvious asymmetries in soon-to-resume nuclear negotiations with Iran (it’s Iran’s nuclear program, not the U.S. one, that is being restricted; it’s the United States, not Iran, that is sanctioning someone else’s economy) the perceptual and political similarities that Americans and Iranians have brought to this encounter are striking to anyone who has been following the subject closely. To begin with, the chief policy-makers in each country clearly want to reach an agreement. On the Iranian side this includes not only the foreign minister who has been conducting the negotiations and the president who has been directly overseeing them but also the Iranian policy-maker who matters most: the supreme leader. It is almost inconceivable that Ayatollah Khamenei would have made it possible for President Rouhani and Foreign Minister Zarif to have gone as far as they have already gone, and to sign Iran up to the commitments they already have made in the preliminary agreement reached in late 2013, if he did not genuinely share the objective of completing the negotiations and reaching a final agreement.http://www.lobelog.com/sanctions-and-symmetry-in-the-iran-negotiations/#more-27613