A new Iran was struggling to remould itself in the turbulent wake of the Islamic revolution and Mr Limbert, a fluent Farsi speaker married to an Iranian, was keen to help forge the US relationship with it. But, as he put it dryly in a recent interview: "My timing was quite lousy." Less than three months later, the embassy was stormed by militant Islamic students who branded it a "den of spies". Mr Limbert was among the 52 US staff held hostage for 444 days. The event scarred the American psyche like few others and led to a rupture in diplomatic ties that still endures. Now, 30 years later, Mr Limbert has been chosen to spearhead Washington's efforts to engage Iran. This month, to the delight of many Iran experts and dismay of US neoconservatives, he was plucked from diplomatic retirement and appointed deputy assistant secretary for Iran in the state department's bureau of Near Eastern affairs. It is a newly created post and the choice of Mr Limbert to fill it is viewed as evidence of the Obama administration's seriousness in trying to break down the wall of mistrust with Iran. Mr Limbert said he believes new approaches are needed after three decades of failure. "For 30 years, we've been in this no war/no peace situation where we're yelling at each other and trading insults and it hasn't got us anywhere and it hasn't got the Iranians anywhere," he said in a July interview with The National.
Iran RPCV John Limbert is regarded by some as an inspirational choice to break the US deadlock with Iran
Embassy hostage to Iran dealmaker
Michael Theodoulou
* Last Updated: November 16. 2009 12:24AM UAE / November 15. 2009 8:24PM GMT
Caption: John Limbert, pictured in 1981, is regarded by some as an inspirational choice to break the US deadlock with Iran. AP
On a sweltering August day in 1979 John Limbert arrived in Iran as an eager, optimistic 36-year-old to take up an exciting diplomatic post at the US Embassy.
A new Iran was struggling to remould itself in the turbulent wake of the Islamic revolution and Mr Limbert, a fluent Farsi speaker married to an Iranian, was keen to help forge the US relationship with it.
But, as he put it dryly in a recent interview: "My timing was quite lousy."
Less than three months later, the embassy was stormed by militant Islamic students who branded it a "den of spies". Mr Limbert was among the 52 US staff held hostage for 444 days.
The event scarred the American psyche like few others and led to a rupture in diplomatic ties that still endures.
Now, 30 years later, Mr Limbert has been chosen to spearhead Washington's efforts to engage Iran.
This month, to the delight of many Iran experts and dismay of US neoconservatives, he was plucked from diplomatic retirement and appointed deputy assistant secretary for Iran in the state department's bureau of Near Eastern affairs.
It is a newly created post and the choice of Mr Limbert to fill it is viewed as evidence of the Obama administration's seriousness in trying to break down the wall of mistrust with Iran.
Mr Limbert said he believes new approaches are needed after three decades of failure.
"For 30 years, we've been in this no war/no peace situation where we're yelling at each other and trading insults and it hasn't got us anywhere and it hasn't got the Iranians anywhere," he said in a July interview with The National.
The prize is huge. Successful negotiations would resolve the Iranian nuclear crisis, serve mutual interests in pacifying Iraq and Afghanistan and help stabilise the wider Middle East.
"The state department hasn't had an assistant secretary solely in charge of Iranian affairs before, so this upgrades the Iranian portfolio substantially. That's a smart move: Iran is sufficiently important to us right now that upgrading it is correct," said Gary Sick, an Iran scholar at New York's Columbia University.
"John Limbert has every possible qualification for that position. He has the academic qualifications, the language, the personal knowledge and a diplomatic record that is very strong," Prof Sick said.
Mr Limbert first visited Iran in 1962, when his father worked there for a development agency. He returned after joining the Peace Corps and spent several years teaching in Iran, taking a break to earn a PhD from Harvard. He later became a diplomat, serving for 33 years in Mauritania, the UAE and Guinea and winning major decorations from the state department, including an award for valour for his 14 months as a hostage in Iran.
The United States, joined by other world powers, began its first substantive direct talks in three decades with Iran in Geneva last month, focusing on Tehran's nuclear programme. The Iranian leadership, however, remains divided by the ongoing political turmoil ignited by June's presidential election. The regime is finding it difficult to respond both to a UN-brokered deal that would allay suspicions about Iran's nuclear programme and whether to accept the US president Barack Obama's offer of engagement.
Mr Limbert is regarded by many as an inspired choice to help break the deadlock. Those who know him say he is genial, sharp-witted and modest but a tough negotiator.
He is also perhaps the only US diplomat ever to have met Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, who has final say on all matters of state.
Their encounter came in April 1980, when Mr Khamenei, then a cabinet minister, visited the US hostages at their embassy-turned-prison. A recently released video, apparently made at the time for Iranian state television, shows Mr Khamenei asking about the captives' welfare. Mr Limbert subtly subverts his supposed show of concern by quipping in perfect Farsi that: "Iranians are too hospitable to guests in their country. When we insist that we must be going, you all tell us, No, no, you must stay'."
Disingenuously, Mr Khamenei tells the camera that the hostages are "very happy" with their conditions: he would have been aware that many of the Americans had been blindfolded, threatened and subjected to long interrogations. Mr Limbert spent nine months in solitary confinement.
He remains remarkably unembittered by the experience, retaining a deep affection for the Iranian people and their culture.
Washington hawks are concerned that he will not be tough enough on Iran. They have focused on his association with the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), an advocacy organisation dedicated to advancing the interests of the Iranian-American community. NIAC also opposes military action and additional sanctions against Iran, while supporting diplomacy between Tehran and Washington to resolve differences peacefully. Mr Limbert served on NIAC's advisory board until his new appointment.
US hardliners have attempted to smear NIAC by claiming it serves the interests of the Iranian government, an allegation denied by the organisation and rejected by serious Iran analysts. NIAC was prompt in denouncing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's June re-election as "illegitimate" and has been vocal in its condemnation of the regime's crackdown on the post-election unrest.
Trita Parsi, NIAC's president, asked why Mr Limbert would join the advisory board of an organisation that supposedly represented the interests of a government that had imprisoned him for 14 months.
Michael Goldfarb of the neoconservative Weekly Standard suggested that Mr Limbert might suffer from a prolonged case of Stockholm syndrome.
Mr Parsi said yesterday: "I'm absolutely disgusted to see how some of these extremist people on the right think they're in a position to attack an American hero, a former hostage, like John Limbert."
Prof Sick also ridiculed the slurs against Mr Limbert. He said: "He's not a softy and he's not somebody who's there to represent Iran's interests. He's sensible and pragmatic, but he is very tough on what should be expected of Iran and has said so clearly."
He added: "People who are convinced that a few more sanctions are somehow going to solve the nuclear problem, or that a bombing raid is going to eliminate the nuclear threat, simply do not understand the problem."
At a recent NIAC-sponsored conference, Mr Limbert argued that discussions on Iran's nuclear programme could also allow the United States to press Tehran on human rights.
He is under no illusion that engaging Iran will be easy.
"Talking to Iran will be difficult and unpleasant," he writes in his recent book, Negotiating with Iran: Wrestling the Ghosts of History. "Yet through serious negotiations even with a regime it dislikes and mistrusts the US may discover areas of common interest that lurk behind the walls of hostility and suspicion."
Mr Limbert, who has not been to Iran since his release in 1981, said in the interview: "I'd like to go, but I'm not sure I'm very welcome."
mtheodoulou@thenational.ae
