Despite Offer of Direct Talks, U.S. Intensifies "Sanctions-Centric" Economic War Against Iran

[rachel1]

DemocracyNow.org - The Obama administration is ratcheting up its economic war against Iran ahead of nuclear talks slated for Kazakhstan later this month. Last week, the White House announced a new expansion of sanctions that pressure countries buying Iran's oil to withhold direct payments and instead force Iran to purchase their goods. The Treasury also widened the sanctions list to include Iranian state media. We're joined by Trita Parsi, founder and president of the National Iranian American Council and author of the new book "A Single Roll of the Dice: Obama's Diplomacy with Iran." Back in the United States after testifying before the British Parliament's foreign affairs committee on Iran's nuclear program, Parsi says: "In spite of [the sanctions], you are not seeing the regime change its nuclear calculus. It's mainly because pressure alone will not work. There has to be negotiations in which something is put on the table that viewed as strategically valuable by the other side. Only then will be able to really say diplomacy has been tested."