US and Iran Talk after Three Decades of Silence

President Obama spoke by phone last week with the new President of Iran, who was in New York for the United Nations' opening session. It was the first such conversation since Iran’s Islamic revolutionaries took over the US Embassy in Tehran 35 years ago. Only 10 years ago, a journalist in Iran could be sent to prison for even advocating such a thing. Despite years of suppression of political protest, both supporters and demonstrators turned out when Hassan Rouhani arrived home on Saturday. Karim Sadjadpour is senior associate in the Middle East program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.