Obama Not Ruling Out Reopening Embassy in Tehran

Accuses Iran of 'Adventurism' Overseas

In a taped interview with NPR, President Obama has said he does not rule out reopening the US Embassy in Tehran before the end of his term in office. The embassy closed in 1979, during a hostage crisis in the wake of the Iranian Revolution.

Obama went on to say Iran had a chance to “get right with the world,” though he provided only vague references to the nuclear talks in detailing what all would be involved with this.

Obama went on to accuse Iran of “adventurism” for its involvement abroad, though apart from being invaded by Iraq in 1980, the primary overseas entanglement for Iran since the revolution has been backing Iraq and Syria in the ISIS war, a conflict the US is also involved in, on the exact same side.

The ISIS war has put the US and Iran on better terms in recent months, though Obama complained Iranian hardliners are still opposed to rapprochement with the US. Similarly, though unmentioned by the president, the incoming US Senate seeks new sanctions against Iran explicitly to ruin the ongoing nuclear negotiations.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.