Our Q&A with Haleh Esfandiari, Middle East program director at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, who was arrested in May 2007 during an academic trip to Tehran. She recently spoke to a women’s business group in Dallas.
Why do you think they arrested you?
In recent years, the Iranian regime – especially under [President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad – truly has believed that the United States, because it is bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, will not attack Iran militarily. ... Therefore, the U.S. will try to overthrow the regime through soft means [using] think tanks, foundations, universities, NGOs. ...
They thought there was a blueprint for soft revolution overthrowing the regime and that I, because I run the Middle East program at the center, was behind that blueprint. So they kept pressuring me: Who are your CIA contacts? Who are your contacts in the State Department? What is this blueprint, this puzzle? What are they up to? So I had to explain to them that the Wilson Center is not in the business of overthrowing the regime. ...
They really believe that there is this conspiracy, this blueprint. As a result of that, they kept me for eight months. I spent 105 days in solitary confinement. We left where we started. I was not able to convince them.
Iran has a presidential election in June. What are the big issues?
Change is very fashionable these days. And reform, too. I think the impetus is to have an Iran which is respected and accepted by other nations in the world, which is not seen as a terrorist or rogue state. And therefore, there is always – ever since Ahmadinejad came to power – an ongoing discussion inside Iran about how we are just alienating the world. We can’t continue doing that.
Recently [various prominent political leaders] all came out openly and criticized Ahmadinejad for both his economic policy and foreign policy, saying that it is doing a disservice to the country. It is harming the country. And what they say resonates with the younger generation.
How are Barack Obama and John McCain perceived in Iran?
They see a McCain administration as a continuation of the Bush administration. ... They look at an Obama administration as someone who will at least talk to the Iranians. They know that an Obama administration is not going to compromise over Israel. ... But they feel that, maybe, they have a chance of talking much easier to an Obama administration.
