Prof. organizes Iran conference in Liechtenstein

Chief negotiators and experts from 12 nations attended a private diplomatic negotiation conference on Iran this month.

The conference was organized by Wilson School professor Wolfgang Danspeckgruber with the help of other University professors, including Associate Dean of the Office of Religious Life Paul Raushenbush, Wilson School Senior Research Policy Analyst Harold Feiveson and Wilson School Senior Special Assistant to the Dean William Burke-Smith, as well as several graduate and undergraduate students.

Delegates from Iran, the United States, Russia, Germany, France, India, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Canada, Austria and Liechtenstein attended the conference titled "Iran's Security Challenges and the Region," which took place in Liechtenstein between March 17 and March 21.

Danspeckgruber has organized about 16 private diplomacy negotiation conferences in the past 20 years. He is also the founding director of the University's Liechtenstein Institute of Self-Determination (LISD), a Wilson School institute that specializes in sovereignty issues.

In accordance with the promise of privacy for the delegates, Danspeckgruber declined to name the participants, but said they included ambassadors and diplomats. "I always promise the participants that by my honor I will not publish what they will tell me," he said. He quoted former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, who once told him about such meetings, "As long as people trust you they will come to these meetings, but if ever they lose trust [in] you once — it's over."

Danspeckgruber decided to organize a conference on Iran in the fall after becoming "aware last year that one of the biggest challenges for the region may come about by a conflict situation [in Iran]."

He originally planned to hold the conference over the summer, but interest in Iran rose after New Yorker reporter Seymour Hersh wrote in a January article titled "The Coming Wars" that the "administration has been conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran."

The article, Danspeckgruber said, created tremendous interest in the issue.

"We suddenly began dealing with an issue which appeared to be of primary strategic interest of the United States," he said.

The private setting of the conference enabled participants to speak freely about their positions and work together to resolve the current crises involving Iran, the United States and Europe, Danspeckgruber said.

"I always tell my students to think out of the box," he said.

The recommendations and ideas reached through the conference will remain confidential due to the nature of the meetings and the role of the participants.

Get the best of the ‘Prince’ delivered straight to your inbox. Subscribe now »

That means Danspeckgruber cannot publish the results of the conference because his leadership of the conference and his promises of privacy take precedence over his role as a publishing academic.

"For me, it is important that we help the situation and we get new ideas," he said, adding that academics like Anne-Marie Slaughter '80, dean of the Wilson School, understand the dilemma he faces between publishing articles and maintaining the trust of conference participants.

Bilderberg Model

Danspeckgruber's model for his private diplomacy conferences is inspired by the Bilderberg model, which originated during the Cold War. Diplomats, ambassadors and heads of states would convene for off-the-record meetings in Bilderberg, Netherlands.

"I learned about this when I went for my diplomatic training in the 1970s and early 1980s," he said. "I discovered the impacts of these meetings. I discovered that it is in private diplomacy settings that you can contribute a lot to discussion, which in formal meetings you would never do."

The lack of diplomatic protocols allowed a freer exchange of ideas, he said, comparing it to a Princeton seminar.

Student Involvement

Former Prime Minister of Sweden Carl Bildt once told Danspeckgruber that these conferences are the only meetings he knows of that are run from "A to Z" by students and directed by a professor, even though the delegates talk about sensitive issues of international importance.

For the three undergraduates and five graduate students who attended the conference, their duties began months ago. They were responsible for logistics such as making travel plans and finding out dietary requirements of the participants.

The advanced graduate students helped to set the agenda and topics of discussion for the meetings. They also contacted the delegates who would be interested in attending the conference.

During the conference, the students, who were chosen by Danspeckgruber, transcribed the delegates' discussions and wrote summaries of the themes of the conference.

"As a freshman, I went in with a blank slate — I was used to theoretical classroom discussions and model UN simulations," said Kayvon Tehranian '08 who, along with Miriam Schive '06 and Sean Cameron '05, went to Liechtenstein. "But being involved in something of this scale in an entirely new context allowed me to see real applications of what we learn and to see people actually try and affect change in the world."

Danspeckgruber emphasized the importance of the students' role. "Since I'm constantly running the meeting, I don't know what's going on behind," he said. "If you chair such a meeting you have to rely on your team, which is left alone, and they handled it perfectly."

Cameron gave up a week of thesis work despite the approaching deadline. "I feel as though what happened during this conference is much more important than my thesis," he said. "What happened in this conference will have an impact in the years to come. A conference like this really fulfills the vision of this University, in bringing together people who can actually influence policymaking on Iran."