...First, the people of Iran are likely to be best served by a diversity of investment from many parts of the world. This offers a range of external leverage points as well as aligning with the truism that the more open the economy, the greater the tendency to value the rule of law and human rights. We can all think of some countries neighbouring Iran where this is clearly not the case, but generally the correlation holds.

...Second, and importantly, that just opening the country to investment flows will not necessarily serve the people of Iran unless international values are upheld. Some issues, such as internationally recognized human rights and labour rights, should clearly be pre-competitive...