May 30th, 2007 by Stephen

Yesterday the Iranian courts announced that three Iranian-Americans have been charged with espionage: Haleh Esfandiari, the Director of the Wilson Center’s Middle East program who has been detained in Evin Prison since early May; Kian Tajbakhsh, an urban planning consultant with George Soros’s Open Society Institute, and journalist Parnaz Azima.

In the New York Times (subscription required), Tom Friedman sees the arrest of Esfandiari as evidence of the paranoia and insecurity of the Iranian regime. Friedman discusses three basic options for dealing with Iran (military action, tougher economic sanctions, & diplomatic engagement), concluding that our best hope is to work for “a stronger Iranian middle class that demands a freer press, consensual politics and rule of law” through a combination of harsher sanctions and engagement.

In the Christian Science Monitor, John Hughes discusses the arrests in a broader context of “psychological warfare” underway between the U.S. and Iran.

Posted in Iran |