Nathan Gonzalez
Nathan Gonzalez is an American scholar, author and journalist based in Orange County, California.
He is a Middle East analyst with the Foreign Policy in Focus think-tank, and founder of the website NationandState.org, an "open-source foreign policy think tank." He is also a blogger with The Huffington Post.
His book Engaging Iran: The Rise of a Middle East Powerhouse and America's Strategic Choice, borrows from the foreign policy school of realism. It suggests that a revised Nixon Doctrine should be pursued in the Middle East. His book, as well as some of his blog entries, suggest that Iran and the United States share many interests, and that America should actively pursue diplomacy with the Islamic Republic.
Early life
Gonzalez has a B.A. in political science from UCLA and a Master of International Affairs from Columbia University. In 2002, he received a research prize from UCLA. His research "predicted that a U.S. invasion would bring about massive sectarian strife, pervasive anti-Americanism in Iraq, and a stronger Iran."Career
Political activism
According to his biography on The Huffington Post, Gonzalez has worked on several political campaigns, as co-founder and political director of Latinos for America, and in 2004 as a staffer on Governor Howard Dean’s presidential campaign in Iowa and New Mexico. A recent blog entry by Gonzalez, titled "On Iraq and Iran, Obama Seems to Get It," suggests a degree of support for the foreign policy of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.Iran nuclear program
In response to the December 2007 National Intelligence Estimate, which claimed that Iran had halted its secret nuclear weapons program in 2003, Gonzalez stated the following:
The discussion surrounding the NIE is in many ways a distraction. We're back to the days when we were asking, "Does Saddam have WMD or not?" We rarely asked those days how exactly those WMDs would affect our security in practical terms, or whether they were worth throwing the relative balance of power that existed in the Gulf out the window.
With Iran, we need to focus on our shared interests. It is no secret that Iran is one of the few countries in the Middle East that actually wants the government of Iraq, and the majority Shia rule it represents, to succeed. Stabilizing Iraq and Afghanistan cannot happen without the active help of Iran, so our focus should be on sitting down and talking to Iran so our troops can come home and our security situation can improve. As we've experienced with the recent breakthroughs in North Korea, diplomacy can make even the most advanced nuclear weapons program a reversible one.
In general, Gonzalez plays down the risk of Iranian nuclear weapons. In a speech before the World Affairs Council of Sacramento, he said: "A lot of anti-Semitic claims that have been made by Iranian President Ahmadinejad scare the crap out of some people. Understandable… But we have to understand that Israel has a nuclear deterrent and Israel sits on Muslim holy ground... no fanatic is going to try to destroy Jerusalem with nuclear weapons. Certainly no ‘fanatic’ from the Islamic Republic of Iran, who has a mansion or owns a luxury condo and wants regime survival..."
Gonzalez lays out his case for diplomatic engagement and normalization of relations with Iran through two concepts: Iran's "trajectory of independence," and the Iranian regime's "cult of anti-Americanism."