Slavin, Barbara 1951-

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Slavin, Barbara 1951-

PERSONAL:

Born 1951. Education: Harvard University, B.A., 1972.

ADDRESSES:

CAREER:

USA Today, senior diplomatic reporter, 1996—. United Press International, New York, NY, former reporter and editor; New York Times, "Week in Review," New York, NY, former reporter, editor, and foreign news writer. Also worked in Washington, DC, for the Los Angeles Times; in Washington, DC, Tokyo, Japan, Beijing, China, and Cairo, Egypt for the Economist; in Tokyo for Newsday, and in Beijing for Business Week.

Frequent commentator for National Public Radio (NPR), Cable-Satellite Public Affairs (C-SPAN), and Public Broadcasting Services (PBS). Public policy scholar, Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 2006.

WRITINGS:

Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the U.S., and the Twisted Path to Confrontation, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2007.

Contributor to periodicals, including the New York Times, Economist, Business Week, Newsday, and the Los Angeles Times.

SIDELIGHTS:

In Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the U.S., and the Twisted Path to Confrontation, USA Today senior diplomatic reporter Barbara Slavin draws on her decades of experience writing for such publications as the Economist, the Los Angeles Times, the New York Times "Week in Review," and United Press International. Since 1996, she has analyzed foreign news and foreign policy for USA Today, and she was the first U.S. reporter to interview Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In an interview for USA Today Online, Slavin explained that she covers "U.S. foreign policy with a special emphasis on the ‘axis of evil’ and the Middle East." She also travels with "the Secretary of State on occasion and develop[s] contacts with other U.S. officials, think tankers and foreign diplomats." Slavin commented that she also travels overseas on her own "to focus on a particular country, such as Iran." "I have focused on the most cutting-edge aspects of U.S. foreign policy," she concluded in the USA Today Online interview. "Also, my foreign travels have enabled me to gain crucial expertise from the point of view of other countries."

In 2006, Slavin was a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, researching the history that went into Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies. The book treats the long and contentious relationship between Iran and the United States in two sections. The first section is devoted to a description of the different communities that make up Iranian society, including the Revolutionary Guard, which executed the 1979 Iranian Revolution; the mullahs, who interpret the laws and communicate them to the citizens of the Islamic republic; the reformers; and the regime loyalists. The second section of Slavin's book is an analysis of the stormy relations between the United States and Iran since the 1979 revolution, including an attempted reconciliation launched by U.S. President Bill Clinton and Iranian President Muhammad Khatami, and the promised cooperation between the two countries against the Taliban and al-Qaeda, following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. This collaboration was brought to an end when President George W. Bush ranked Iran with Iraq and North Korea in an "axis of evil." Slavin reports that the second George W. Bush administration may also have lost an opportunity to seek rapprochement with Iran in 2003, when Iran called for a comprehensive agreement between the two nations. "In a clear and lively style free of academic or government jargon," John Limbert wrote in a review for the Middle East Journal, Slavin "untangles a complex and difficult subject." Limbert adds that Slavin asks the question "[Why have] the United States and Iran … become obsessed with each other and seem unable to move beyond a confrontation that benefits neither side?" Limbert also praised how the author "humanize[s] her subject," reminding the reader that political issues "play out, not in the elevated world of think tanks and policy discussions," but instead in the minds of ordinary men and women driven by necessity and common sense.

So how can a reconciliation—if one is possible—be realized between the United States and Iran? "The author encourages diplomacy and patience," stated a Kirkus Reviews writer, "noting that there are political divisions in play in Iran that may yield an opening should the ‘executives of construction’ or the ‘Islamic Participation Front’ come to power." There are, Slavin notes, elements in Iran that would welcome an improved relationship with the West, including the United States. Many ordinary Iranians are not anti-American—even those who adhere to Islamic law and follow the teachings of the mullahs and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei—Slavin points out in Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies. "This articulate study," declared a Publishers Weekly contributor, "helps clear the fog between two nations that have long and systematically demonized each other."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Foreign Affairs, November 1, 2007, L. Carl Brown, review of Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the U.S., and the Twisted Path to Confrontation, p. 200.

Kirkus Reviews, August 15, 2007, review of Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies.

Middle East Journal, March 22, 2008, John Limbert, review of Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies, p. 341.

Publishers Weekly, August 13, 2007, review of Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies, p. 55.