{"id":887155,"date":"2026-03-17T01:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T08:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.heraldnet.com\/2026\/03\/17\/letter-white-house-missed-opportunity-for-outreach-to-iranian-people\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T16:37:46","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T23:37:46","slug":"letter-white-house-missed-opportunity-for-outreach-to-iranian-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.heraldnet.com\/2026\/03\/17\/letter-white-house-missed-opportunity-for-outreach-to-iranian-people\/","title":{"rendered":"Letter: White House missed opportunity for outreach to Iranian people"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Did anyone in the current administration consider more &ldquo;carrot and less stick?&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>The devastated Iranian man on the front page of the Seattle Times touched me deeply.<\/p>\n<p>Were the people of Iran close to putting theocracy in the waste basket of history?<\/p>\n<p>If the U.S. had communicated something positive, i.e., &ldquo;May we help you with engineering and funds to solve Tehran&rsquo;s drinking water shortage?&rdquo; Just the offer may have been enough. MAGA probably would have responded with &ldquo;they will use the money saved to build another drone.&rdquo; Maybe, maybe not. For now Iranians feel sadness and anger. Both justified.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Troy Myers <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><em>Edmonds <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Did anyone in the current administration consider more &ldquo;carrot and less stick?&rdquo;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3361,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1020,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-887155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-letters","category-opinion"],"acf":[],"parsely":{"version":"1.1.0","canonical_url":"https:\/\/heraldnet.com\/2026\/03\/17\/letter-white-house-missed-opportunity-for-outreach-to-iranian-people\/","smart_links":{"inbound":0,"outbound":0},"traffic_boost_suggestions_count":0,"meta":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","headline":"Letter: White House missed opportunity for outreach to Iranian people","url":"http:\/\/www.heraldnet.com\/2026\/03\/17\/letter-white-house-missed-opportunity-for-outreach-to-iranian-people\/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"http:\/\/www.heraldnet.com\/2026\/03\/17\/letter-white-house-missed-opportunity-for-outreach-to-iranian-people\/"},"thumbnailUrl":"","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":""},"articleSection":"Letters","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"none"}],"creator":["none"],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"HeraldNet.com","logo":""},"keywords":[],"dateCreated":"2026-03-17T08:30:00Z","datePublished":"2026-03-17T08:30:00Z","dateModified":"2026-03-18T23:37:46Z"},"rendered":"<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"wp-parsely-metadata\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@type\":\"NewsArticle\",\"headline\":\"Letter: White House missed opportunity for outreach to Iranian people\",\"url\":\"http:\\\/\\\/www.heraldnet.com\\\/2026\\\/03\\\/17\\\/letter-white-house-missed-opportunity-for-outreach-to-iranian-people\\\/\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"http:\\\/\\\/www.heraldnet.com\\\/2026\\\/03\\\/17\\\/letter-white-house-missed-opportunity-for-outreach-to-iranian-people\\\/\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"url\":\"\"},\"articleSection\":\"Letters\",\"author\":[{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"name\":\"none\"}],\"creator\":[\"none\"],\"publisher\":{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"name\":\"HeraldNet.com\",\"logo\":\"\"},\"keywords\":[],\"dateCreated\":\"2026-03-17T08:30:00Z\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-03-17T08:30:00Z\",\"dateModified\":\"2026-03-18T23:37:46Z\"}<\/script>","tracker_url":"https:\/\/cdn.parsely.com\/keys\/heraldnet.com\/p.js"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heraldnet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heraldnet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heraldnet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heraldnet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3361"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heraldnet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=887155"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.heraldnet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887155\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":887156,"href":"https:\/\/www.heraldnet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/887155\/revisions\/887156"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heraldnet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=887155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heraldnet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=887155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heraldnet.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=887155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}