Center for Middle East Policy

It’s a little difficult to tell why [the Iranian regime] did what they did at this time with the subsidies...There’s no excuse for undertaking that policy in this way...This announcement was unusual as it was so abrupt; it came with no notice or planning to brace the public.

The idea of having an envoy for Iran has been talked about for a long time...It has real value because Iran is a crisis that takes up a lot of diplomatic time and energy, and often spans functional and regional directorates in a way that makes it difficult to have a full-scope policy.