My former boss chimes in on START, Iran

I will always think fondly upon Barbara Slavin as the person who gave me my first start in this wacky, and sometimes unforgiving business. It’s good to see she is doing well after bumps in her own career.

A week or two after graduating from American University I nervously approached the offices of the Washington Times. I was overdressed for the casual, coffee-stained nature of the newsroom and I had probably over-caffeinated myself as I tried to remember the points I wanted hammer into my pitch for why they should give regular freelance work to a 21-year-old kid headed to a tiny post-Soviet republic.

Barbara Slavin, via AOLnews.com

After eating a cafeteria lunch with Foreign Editor Willis Witter, I was led around the newsroom, and eventually to the office of the head honcho — Managing Editor Barbara Slavin. She listened and took notes through my jittery spiels on story ideas, and then tried to hone in on what could be a tighter focus within a few of them. She then asked me a key question “Вы говорите по-русски? (Do you speak Russian?)”

I explained in Russian that I did, and the conversation continued in that language. Eventually she asked me where I learned it. “I spent a year studying in St. Petersburg,” I said. “Where did you learn Russian?” I asked her. “In Leningrad,” she smiled. She then officially welcomed me to the team and bid me a “всего хорошего!” as I walked out with a smile.

A few weeks later, I flew off to Tbilisi, Georgia with little more than a few pairs of summer clothes, some graduation money and a freelance contract with the Washington Times.

I had no clear indication that I was up for the task ahead of me — filing correspondence reports from a foreign country, interviewing foreign leaders in foreign languages and making some sort of a living from freelance scraps. But thanks in large part to that initial trust from Willis and Barbara, I was given the opportunity to prove I can hold my own weight, and after more than a year in Georgia I have found a way to sustain myself with the enthralling, albeit impoverished, life of a freelance journalist.

Sadly, last December the Washington Times went through a major restructuring, laying off roughly half of its staff and drastically reducing the scope of the publication. Among those who were gone when the dust settled were both Willis and Barbara.

However, in the past few months I have been very happy to see Barbara’s byline next to several insightful pieces on this part of the world in various prestigious publications.

Last week, she had an extremely interesting piece in Foreign Policy on a former-Iranian-hostage-turned-Bush-era-voice-of-calm. The piece highlights the unfortunate clumsiness of Iranian-American relations and the culture of confrontation in both Tehran and Washington.

“Here’s the problem,” [John] Limbert said. “For 30 years, careers were made both here and in Tehran by how nasty you could be to the other side and how creative you could be in being nasty to the other side. So if you’re going to change that, what happens if it doesn’t get some immediate result? It’s very easy to slip back into what you always have been doing.”

Quite a perspective from a guy who had an Iranian gun pointed to his head for 444 days.

This week, Barbara came out in favor of the new START treaty in an opinion piece for AOL News. I sorta poo-pooed the treaty in a post last week, and she makes good points in defense of it — namely because it helps to improve U.S.-Russian in three key domains:

Iran: While the U.S. and Russia remain at odds over Russia’s treatment of former Soviet republics, such as Georgia, and Russia’s poor record on human rights, the two are increasingly cooperating on restraining Iran’s nuclear program.

Investment: Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is eager to diversify his country’s economy, which currently relies on energy exports, and is seeking U.S. investment, particularly in high tech. U.S.-Russia trade last year was a mere $24 billion and needs to grow to give the relationship a solid footing.

Afghanistan: Russia is facilitating the U.S. war in Afghanistan by providing transit corridors for supplies and wants the U.S. to succeed in stabilizing the country that was the graveyard for so many Soviet troops in the 1980s and is the source of drugs that kill ordinary Russians every day.

It’s good to see some of the good folks back at the Washington Times have landed on their feet. Don’t worry, Willis, I’ll keep an eye out for you too in the future!