professor sadri. spent i accept the promotion. >> your perspectives on the next steps in the next round. >> what a wonderful basis to start with. indeed, 34 years hiatus in iran, u.s. relations, assuming the last 10 years of nuclear negotiations, provides a ground for pessimism, so people will say well, no time is a good time to start negotiating with iran. perfect time will never come, and i think right now is the right time right after the american elections. and right before the iranian elections started. remember back in 2008 when we were in the same point in the cycle, except right now on the ground the situation is much worse. there's more fissile material. there's more ill will, and there is less of an optimism. so i would say this is the perfect time to start the negotiations. in 2008, the obama administration didn't go for it, calculating rationally that probably a settlement of the issue at the time would benefit president ahmadinejad and help him in his bid for a second round. well, we all

so professional sadri. with the iranian presidential election coming up in june, how is that going to affect iran's negotiating strategy in the coming months and who is calling the shots during this period? and related to this, as we all know, there is a war -- a civil war happening in syria. iran is a wrote ally of the assad regime. how is that affecting iran yeas security calculations? -- iran's security calculations? are they going to insert that into the p-5 plus one dialogue? how will you answer the questions? >> of course the middle east has stranged. the syrian war and now this confrontation between israel and hamas that somehow brought us back to the middle east that we used to know, the israelis and the arabs going at it and egypt. but right before that iran saw its for turns decline. its popularity in the arab streets declined because of the arab spring, and then the syrian situation has introduced some very, very important elements, almost sectarian element that declined -- that eroded iranian in

sadri, professor of sociology and anthropology and chair of islamic world studies at lake forest college, and dr. jim we'll shall, research institute -- massachusetts institute of technologies. we have asked each of them to take about five to seven minutes to provide their perspectives on three basic questions. with the new window of opportunity opened for diplomacy, what are the next steps that each side can and should take to resolve the proliferation concerns and reduce the risk of war? how might each side adjust their respective proposals to get to a win-win situation for both sides? and what are the best -- what's the best path for both parties to take to get there? could for instance, additional direct u.s.-iran talks help advance progress? we are going to hear from each of them for about five to seven minutes. afterwards we'll take questions from reporters first and then from our audience on the three by five cards in your folder. so as questions occur to you, you might jot those down and someone will take the cards and pass it forward in just a few minutes. with that introduction