The most important event of 2013 was the change in the relationship between the U.S. and Iran (through the nuclear talks). I have always said that a new kind of civil society has emerged in Iran, so there is nothing new as far as that country is concerned. The new American policy is a dramatic shift.
My prediction of a decline in American power turned out to be absolutely correct. But what we are seeing is that this reduction in power is producing, at last, a more reasonable attitude toward the outside world. In the days of President George W. Bush, there was something unbearable about the U.S., about the idea that there is just one form of democracy with a specific type of financial capitalism, and that this must be extended all over the world. Perhaps the emergence of a new, more reasonable American foreign policy is important in terms of geopolitical balance. It means the risk of war and the risk of conflict, or hysterical conflict, is lower or nil.
