Writer and political scientist Trita Parsi is an expert observer of the labyrinthine relationships between the U.S. and the Middle East, cutting through conventional stereotypes to laying bare the often-contentious history of the region.
When Parsi was only 4, his family fled to Sweden from Iran to escape political repression. Parsi later relocated to the U.S., where he earned a PhD and founded the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), a grassroots organization promoting the interests of the U.S./ Iranian community.
“Parsi argues that there is still a chance for diplomacy to allow the United States and Iran to break out of their ‘institutionalized enmity.'” — Foreign Affairs
At the UN General Assembly last week, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, warned the U.S. that they were being fooled by Iranian promises of nuclear concessions in peace talks, calling Iranian president Hasan Rouhani a “wolf in sheep’s clothing.” But the real threat, suggests Trita Parsi, isn’t between Iran and the rest of the world […]
Continue readingToday on the TEDGlobal stage, two days before election in Iran, political scientist Trita Parsi argues that the Israeli-Iranian conflict is resolvable because its nature is geopolitical, not ideological. To illustrate, Parsi quotes an Israeli prime minister: “Iran is Israel’s best friend, and we do not intend to change our position in relation to Tehran.” […]
Continue reading“It’s about discarding assumptions about the Middle East, Latin America, and the way you think the world works,” Nassim Assefi described in an interview before we all got to Edinburgh for TEDGlobal 2013. This session, which she co-curated with fellow TED Fellow Gabriella Gomez-Mont, features a host of speakers who’ll be prompting us to think […]
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