Iran’s Role and Power in the Region and the International System
5-8 March 2009
Triesenberg, Liechtenstein

LISD co-sponsored a Liechtenstein Colloquium on “Iran’s Role and Power in the Region and the International System,” March 5-8, 2009 in Triesenberg, Principality of  Liechtenstein. The meeting was co-sponsored with the Liechtenstein Institute in Vienna, Austria (LIVA). This colloquium was funded in part by LISD, by a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York as part of LISD’s project work on Afghanistan and the region, by the SIBIL Foundation, Vaduz, and by the Government of the Principality of Liechtenstein.

In the tradition of the Liechtenstein Colloquium on European and International Affairs (LCM), this LCM was meant to be a conduit for open, meaningful, honest, and candid exchange. The LCM vision has always been independent, international, interdisciplinary, and innovative. In a private, non-polemic environment participants will consider and discuss the needs, concerns, fears, and  aspirations of all parties involved in order to search for new solutions to pressing international issues with innovative and forward thinking ideas. This private LCM convened academics, diplomats, and experts from the US, EU, Iran, the neighbor states, and the region. Participation was by invitation only. This was the fifth LISD-sponsored colloquium on Iran, and the third in Liechtenstein.  

The colloquium convened at a moment when it seemed that “all chips are in the air.” Recent developments and projections had become part of a complex and challenging mélange: a new U.S. administration that is searching for new policies, Iran’s presidential race, the recent news about the Iranian nuclear program, ongoing developments and emerging challenges vis-à-vis Iran’s neighbors Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq; Israel’s elections and Saudi Arabia’s politics of succession; the price change in hydro-carbons; and the global economic recession.

The colloquium examined four critical set of issues with the aim of developing new ideas and proposing possible solutions to support peaceful, stable, and mutually beneficial developments in and between the states concerned and within the region, as well as on the international level. The areas of focus were: Iran and its eastern, western and southern regional neighbors; Iran and multilateral nuclear diplomacy; Iran and the European Union; and Iran and the United States.

The LCM was originally established in 1986 by Wolfgang Danspeckgruber and then-H.S.H. Hereditary Prince Hans Adam II of Liechtenstein, with the first colloquium convened 20 years ago in April 1989 in Vaduz, Liechtenstein. The LCM is a private diplomacy forum, run like a Princeton seminar, in which key actors and experts engage in meaningful, intensive, off-the-record discussions and dialogue (strict Chatham House Rules apply) with the goal of generating innovative recommendations that address pressing international issues. The meetings are organized and administered by Princeton University students and chaired by Wolfgang Danspeckgruber, director of LISD.