Imprisoned In Iran

Ironically, the director of the Wilson Center is former congressman Lee Hamilton, an ex-chairman of the House International Relations Committee and the co-author of last year's Baker-Hamilton report that proposed that the way to help extricate the United States from its difficulties in Iraq would be to open a dialogue with Iraq's neighbors, like Iran. This reporter has no doubt that Hamilton's views on the need to open a dialogue with Tehran were strongly shaped by our mutual colleague, Haleh. Her continued detention is an outrage against scholarship, an outrage against human decency, and an affront to the great tradition of Persian civilization that Haleh so proudly and profoundly represents. Like all my colleagues at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, I hope to see this splendid woman again, very soon.