Pressure on President Obama to recast the failed American approach to Israel-Palestine is building from former senior officials whose counsel he respects.

Following up on a letter dated Nov. 6, 2008, that was handed to Obama late last year by Paul Volcker, now a senior economic adviser to the president, these foreign policy mandarins have concluded a "Bipartisan Statement on U.S. Middle East Peacemaking" that should become an essential template.

Deploring "seven years of absenteeism" under the Bush administration, they call for intense American mediation in pursuit of a two-state solution, "a more pragmatic approach toward Hamas," and eventual U.S. leadership of a multinational force to police transitional security between Israel and Palestine.

I would like to thank the AIC for organizing this panel.

Also, I would like to express my gratitude to President Obama for his Nowruz address and I am hopeful that the talks with his leadership will based on mutual respect and interest. Let me tell you as an Iranian insider how I perceived Iran's Supreme Leader respond to the Nowruz Message of the President.
Ayatolah Khamenei felt Obama's remarks were so significant that he should be the first person to respond. He said "we are not going to be emotional and we will calculate and if the US would change, we would change too". And finally he asks for tangible steps.

Last year, he said that if I know that the US-Iran talk/relations is useful, I would be the first one to talk. Therefore, both sides should not miss this opportunity.

Regarding the foreign affairs of our country, I would like to mentions one point, and that is the issue between us and the United States. One of the main challenges for the Revolution, right from the beginning, was the same issue. Right from the first day of the Revolution's victory, a phase was opened for the Iranian nation, as a major test in its relations and interactions with the government of the United States of America. This major and important test continued for the past 30 years. The US Government faced this Revolution with an angry and frowning face, and opposed us from the beginning. Of course, they had the right to do so, considering their own calculations.

Before the Revolution, Iran was in the hands of the United States, its vital resources were in the hands of the United States, its political decision-making centers were in the hands of the United States, decisions to appoint and depose its vital centers were in the hands of the United States, and it (Iran) was like a field for the United States, the US military, and others on which to graze. Well, this was taken away from them. They could have expressed their opposition in not such an aggressive manner. But from the beginning of the Revolution, both their Republican presidents, and the Democrats, did not behave well toward the Islamic Republic. Th! is is no t secret from anyone.

With his bold message to Iran's leaders, President Obama achieved four things essential to any rapprochement.

He abandoned regime change as an American goal. He shelved the so-called military option. He buried a carrot-and-sticks approach viewed with contempt by Iranians as fit only for donkeys. And he placed Iran's nuclear program within "the full range of issues before us."

By doing so, Obama made it almost inevitable that one of the defining strategic issues of his presidency will be a painful but necessary redefinition of America's relations with Israel as differences over Iran sharpen. I will return to that below.

For the millions of people who trace their heritage to Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Turkey, Pakistan, India, and Central Asia, Nowruz is a time to celebrate the new year with the arrival of spring. . . . Our country is proud to be a land where individuals from many different cultures can pass their traditions on to future generations. The diversity of America brings joy to our citizens and strengthens our nation during Nowruz and throughout the year.

THE PRESIDENT: Today I want to extend my very best wishes to all who are celebrating Nowruz around the world.

This holiday is both an ancient ritual and a moment of renewal, and I hope that you enjoy this special time of year with friends and family.

The Obama team is tight with information, but I've got the scoop on the senior advisers he's gathered to push a new Middle East policy as the Gaza war rages: Shibley Telhami, Vali Nasr, Fawaz Gerges, Fouad Moughrabi and James Zogby.

This group of distinguished Arab-American and Iranian-American scholars, with wide regional experience, is intended to signal a U.S. willingness to think anew about the Middle East, with greater cultural sensitivity to both sides, and a keen eye on whether uncritical support for Israel has been helpful.

Until he retired from the State Department earlier this year, Nicholas Burns was, as under secretary of state for political affairs, the lead U.S. negotiator on Iran.

And how many times, during his three years in this role, did he meet with an Iranian?

Not once.

Burns wasn't allowed to. His presence was supposed to be the reward if the Iranians suspended uranium enrichment and sat down at the table.

The United States and Iran are talking to each other about the elimination of an entire category of weapons of mass destruction. That is a good thing. On the eve of Barack Obama's inauguration, it shows there is nothing in the DNA of the two nations that precludes dialogue.

The discussions - often bruising but never to the point of a breakup - are proceeding within the framework of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons. That's an unwieldy name for something the world should cheer.

At Palestine Square, opposite a mosque called Al-Aqsa, is a synagogue where Jews of this ancient city gather at dawn. Over the entrance is a banner saying: "Congratulations on the 30th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution from the Jewish community of Esfahan."

The Jews of Iran remove their shoes, wind leather straps around their arms to attach phylacteries and take their places. Soon the sinuous murmur of Hebrew prayer courses through the cluttered synagogue with its lovely rugs and unhappy plants. Soleiman Sedighpoor, an antiques dealer with a store full of treasures, leads the service from a podium under a chandelier.

So a Jerusalem Post article says that I'm "hardly the first American to be misled by the existence of synagogues in totalitarian countries."

The Atlantic Monthly's Jeffrey Goldberg finds me "particularly credulous," taken in by the Iranian hospitality and friendliness that "are the hallmarks of most Muslim societies." (Thanks for that info, Jeffrey.)

A conservative Web site called American Thinker, which tries to prove its name is an oxymoron, believes I would have been fooled by the Nazis' sham at the Theresienstadt camp.

What Iran fears most is a Gorbachev figure, somebody from within the regime who in the name of compromise with the West ends up selling out the revolution and destroying its edifice.

The jostling ahead of the June 12 presidential election -- the world's most important since America's -- must be viewed through this prism. The core debate is: can Iran manage a Chinese-style reform where its Islamic hierarchy endures through change, or does opening to America equal Soviet-style implosion?

The Alborz Mountains soar above the north side of the megalopolis that is the Iranian capital, their snowy peaks arousing dreams of evasion in people caught by the city's bottlenecks. One day I could resist them no longer.

Near Evin prison, where thousands languish and executions are frequent, a trail begins. Following a rushing stream, it winds up past teahouses full of the fragrant smoke of hookahs and stalls offering fresh pomegranate juice, into the bracing wild.

When it comes to Iran, the choice of metaphor is limited.

"I would never take a military option off the table," Barack Obama declared during the campaign, a position unchanged since he became president.

"We are not taking any option off the table at all," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said at her Senate confirmation hearing.

The young Revolutionary Guardsman, in his light tan uniform, was all smiles. "I had longed to see a real American," he said, extending a hand.

We were standing near the shrine to Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the man who inspired the Islamic Revolution whose defense is the mission of the powerful Iranian Revolutionary Guards.

"And, what do you think?"

No Iranian puzzle frustrates America and its allies as much as how to reach Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader who sets the country's direction.

When I asked one veteran Iran hand how old Khamenei is, the answer was: "Not old enough." Years of probing have failed to unearth a conduit to the man with the white beard and outsized glasses whose image, often smiling, dots the billboards of Tehran. The guy's a mystery.

At one of the embassies offering islands of peace from the gridlocked, grinding Iranian capital, a Western diplomat said this of United States and allied policy toward Iran: "You could argue that our policy has not yet failed."

That would be the most charitable view. But it is failing. Where Iran had a handful of centrifuges enriching uranium four years ago, it now has at least 5,000. With its enemies in Iraq and Afghanistan removed by American military force, it has extended its regional influence.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton grabbed headlines with an invitation to Iran to attend a conference on Afghanistan, but the significant Middle Eastern news last week came from Britain. It has "reconsidered" its position on Hezbollah and will open a direct channel to the militant group in Lebanon.

Like Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah has long been treated by the United States as a proscribed terrorist group. This narrow view has ignored the fact that both organizations are now entrenched political and social movements without whose involvement regional peace is impossible.

The Persian New Year, or Norouz, is celebrated this month, often with great extravagance. Among its traditions is jumping over a bonfire while declaiming: "Take away my yellow complexion and give me your red glow of health."

One way of looking at Iran's particular calendar, its language and Shiite branch of Islam is as forms of resistance against the Arab and Sunni worlds. Shiism has been a means to independence. The defense of Farsi against Arabic took the form of a medieval epic, "Shahnameh," by the poet Ferdowsi.

Executive Summary

The ongoing promotion of coercive diplomacy, based on a "carrots and sticks" framework, and the continuing threats of military action against Iran - "all options remain on the table" -- have failed to achieve their stated objectives, which is to change Iran's behavior in areas such as uranium enrichment, support for "terrorism," opposition to Middle East peace and human rights violation. These policy approaches are based on false assumptions about Iran, an incomplete understanding of the Islamic Republic, and a problematic definition of issues standing between the two governments. They also fail to realize that, as long as Washington remains hostile to Tehran, the best option of the Islamic Republic in relations to the U.S. is to maintain the prevailing "neither-peace nor-war" status quo.

More importantly, these approaches, official and proposed, fail to map out a U.S.-Iran relationship that the United States should want to emerge at the end of successful negotiations over these problem areas. Will the U.S. be satisfied with an Iran that has changed its "behavior" in all these "problem" areas to the U.S. satisfaction but has at the same time forged a strategic alliance with American future rivals for global and regional leadership, such as Russia or China? Does Iran have a strategic value for the U.S. as one of the largest and oldest nations in the region, and one that sits in the middle of the world's most energy-rich regions, namely, the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf? Does Iran have any strategic value for the U.S. as a nation of talents and culture, a regional magnet, a major oil producer, and a large market?