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"When Ahmadinejad brings out this laundry list of grievances, you can go with that two ways," says Limbert. "You can say that the guy's crazy and can't do anything about it. Or you can say that like many people in Iran he carries around this burden of history. And it's a history of grievances: grievances real and grievances imagined, but they are still around."

"Or you can move on," says Precht.

"You have to deal with the grievances and then move on," says Limbert.

In either case, there will not be warm handshakes any time soon, nor should there be. Talks between Washington and Tehran might begin with questions of regional security and stability, especially in Iraq and Afghanistan, both of which border Iran. There have been such successful contacts in the past. "We have to find how to make more of this," says Limbert. "But people on both sides are doing their best to undermine it."

"There are Iranians who think it's nice to be mean to us," says Precht, drinking the liquid yogurt known as doogh. "I think we should ignore all that. Keep the eye on the ball and see the negotiations as paving the way for the future."

"Maybe," says Laingen, opening a U.S. interests section in the Swiss Embassy in Tehran—as the Bush administration contemplated—would be "a good step." American diplomats would staff the office. They'd be the first U.S. diplomats on the ground there since Laingen and Limbert were freed.

"I'm against that," says Limbert. "I'm against sending colleagues right now."

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Member Comments

  • Posted By: brydges @ 02/13/2009 7:57:55 PM

    Aww did your feelings get hurt. Are you a left wing nazi or a muslim terrorist (Animal)
    If it wasn't for the west the middles east would still be trying to figure how to get the oil out of the goround let alone use it. Futhermoe they would still be urinating in the same creek they drink out of. So actually they should thank the jews for adding some civilization to their worhtl;es sand hole

  • Posted By: ross1972 @ 02/13/2009 6:38:50 PM

    The UK banned Geert Wilders but have no problem admitting to the United Kingdom the likes of Dr Ijaz Mian, who preached as follows at the Ahl-e-Hadith mosque in Derby and recorded for a television documentary,UNDERCOVER MOSQUE:

    'You cannot accept the rule of the kaffir. We have to rule ourselves and we have to rule the others... King, Queen, House of Commons: if you accept it, you are a part of it. If you don't accept it, you have to dismantle it. So you being a Muslim, you have to fix a target. From that White House to this Black House, we know we have to dismantle it. Muslims must grow in strength, then take over... You are in a situation in which you have to live like a state-within-a-state - until you take over.'

    Stand Up Or Be Stood On.


  • Posted By: jbz7879 @ 02/13/2009 3:49:26 PM

    brydges -from the way you talk and your manners reflect you do not even have a tent to live in but live in a cave with some bears -is that in israel or in some part of a gutter where toads live with cockroaches

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