Mennonite Weekly Review

It came down to the last minute, as usual. Last October Mennonite Central Committee organized a delegation from U.S. and Canadian Mennonite universities to Iran. Their purpose was to explore educational exchanges between schools in the two countries.

Lyndaker Schlabach

As is frequently the case, the group’s visas were not approved until shortly before they were to leave. This meant last-minute drama, shuttling between the MCC Washington Office, the Iranian Interests Section in the District of Columbia and the airport to deliver the visas. In the end all but one of the visas were approved, and the group had a successful trip.

Unfortunately, despite commitments from U.S. and Iranian officials to make exchanges like this one possible, the end result is not always a success.

On several occasions MCC has sought to bring Iranian religious leaders to the United States and thus far has been unable to do so, due to visa challenges. There are many other examples as well, including Iran’s recent denial of visas to a U.S. women’s badminton team.

These tit-for-tat realities point to the difficulties in finding a way forward between our two countries.

Iranians remember well the U.S.-backed coup in 1953 that overthrew Iran’s democratically elected leader. Americans focus instead on the events of 1979, when Iranian students took U.S. hostages in Tehran and held them for 444 days.

Lost in those events are the occasions when the U.S. and Iran have worked together at shared interests. Today there remain a number of common interests between our two countries, including stability in two of Iran’s neighbors, Afghanistan and Iraq.

This spring, will there be a thaw in U.S.-Iran relations that recognizes these shared interests? The possibility seems more hopeful than it has in awhile.

On Feb. 9 President Obama said, “We will be looking for openings that can be created … face-to-face diplomatic overtures, that will allow us to move in a new direction.”

President Ahmadinejad responded that “the Iranian nation welcomes real changes and is ready for dialogue in a climate of equality and mutual respect.”