Trita Parsi

So you had a plummeting of literacy in Iraq, particularly amongst the female population.

So you tell me, how can you actually transition a country towards democracy when you have rising illiteracy?

And this is Iraq, a country that historically has been the center of education and literacy in the Arab world.

50% of all books in Arabic used to be printed in Iraq.

It's a long, long history that even precedes the arrival of Islam in Iraq.

So sanctions slowly but surely destroys these countries.

push the us congress to impose sanctions on iraq on iraq this is yeah well this is because of saddam hussein's attack on kuwait and then later on the suspicions of his nuclear weapons program

And so you had UN sanctions, you had the food for oil program.

I was working at the UN at the time in the security council.

Iraq was part of my portfolio.

This is when I was working for the Swedish foreign ministry.

And I remember those meetings, you know, where I remember the Brits objected to toilet paper and lipstick as a dual technology.

Dual use.

Dual use.

could not send it into Iraq.

I mean, it is the suffocation of a country and the Iranians need sanctions lifted.

And from their standpoint, their best moment for the last couple of decades to actually have a real negotiation with the United States in which they do have leverage as a result of this mistaken war,

to be able to get a deal that actually really lifts the sanctions, not the way it did in the JCPOA, but actually also takes away primary sanctions.

They've never been in a better position to do so.

Now they may not entirely see it that way.