Talk to Iran moderates, U.S. expert says

WASHINGTON, Jan. 17 (UPI) -- The U.S. government should try and launch a dialogue with Iranian moderates on nuclear and other issues, an American expert said Wednesday.

Ted Galen Carpenter, vice president for foreign policies and defense studies at the Cato Institute, a Washington-based libertarian think tank, said in a statement Wednesday that hard-line Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad appeared to be experiencing a crisis of confidence in his government and was facing increasingly vocal opposition in the Majlis, the Iranian parliament.

Carpenter, author of the recent study "Iran's Nuclear Program: America's Policy Options," said: "The willingness of 150 members of Iran's Parliament to sign a letter criticizing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's policies on numerous issues confirms that there are significant divisions within the country's political elite. Washington should seize this opportunity to reach out to moderate elements and attempt to start a dialogue on the nuclear crisis, the civil war in Iraq, and other concerns."

"The latest episode shows that hawks who advocate bombing Iran because the country is 'just like Nazi Germany' greatly oversimplify matters," Carpenter said. "Iran is not a political monolith. The notion of a parliamentary opposition that was able to criticize Adolf Hitler during the Nazi era is absurd on its face. Ahmadinejad is an odious individual, but he does not even begin to exercise the degree of power that Hitler had in Germany. We can and should find a way to negotiate with more sensible elements of Iran's governing elite."