By Thomas McCarvel & Trevor Fifer

Negotiations with Iran are our only viable option. It is in our best interest to promote positive discussion as opposed to hostile actions and preemptive strikes. Given that Iran is far into the stages of nuclear weapon development, we must improve relations.

Goading and prodding them will only elicit more harmful interactions and widen the gap between our two countries. Even though the Iranians have provoked us in recent years, that does not mean we should further negative relations.

Rather, we should improve relations by opening peace talks and engaging them as a country. How will we engage them? We can start by apologizing for Operation Ajax, which led to the authoritarian regime that lasted for the next 26 years and was supported by the U.S. government.

The current anti-Western environment is a response to the U.S.-British support of a tyrant during the ’50s, ’60s and ’70s. American imperialism is not acceptable in the Middle East, with Iraq as exhibit A.

Instead, we must forge good relations with these countries because we would both benefit from good relations with each other.

That way we can export American feedom and import Iranian oil. But negotiations and open lines of communication are the only way.

Vince Szilagy

The President’s foreign policy towards Iran has been decidedly unsatisfactory.

Whether it was our inaction on the Iranian Green Revolution or the Iranian capture of our CIA spy drone, the President’s record is full of unforced errors that are not only embarrassing but geopolitically disastrous.

The damage has already been done on these issues, but there is still a chance for the US to stop Iran’s nuclear ambitions.

The US needs to take a much harsher tone on Iran and its nuclear program.

Diplomacy is a romantic, yet ineffective idea when dealing with rogue states with nuclear ambitions.

North Korea has proven the folly of trying to convince a state to relinquish its “ace in the hole” with simple diplomacy and sanctions. The only proven way to prevent a nation from acquiring nuclear weapons has been military action.

The Israelis, acting with U.S. diplomatic and political support, destroyed the Iraqi and Syrian nuclear weapons programs and kept the world’s most dangerous weapons out of the hands of its most ruthless dictators.

Iran cannot, under any circumstances, be allowed to acquire nuclear weapons.

The President must send a clear message to the Iranians: If they do not comply with international demands to dismantle their illegal nuclear program, the U.S. and its allies will take matters into their own hands.

There may well be blowback if military action is taken, but nothing compared to what a nuclear-capable Iran would do if it got the weapons it seeks.

B