You're listening to a podcast from the BBC World Service.

This is Hard Talk with me, Stephen Sacker.

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Welcome to Hard Talk on the BBC World Service, with me, Stephen Sacker.

My guest today was Britain's Foreign Secretary through tumultuous times. Jack Straw was appointed to the post by

Tony Blair in 2001. Within months, Al-Qaeda had mounted the 9-11 attacks on America, and the following

years brought war and turmoil across the Middle East and beyond. One key concern was Iran and efforts to curb Tehran's

extensive and secretive nuclear program. Jack Straw was an advocate of diplomatic engagement

at a time when George W. Bush labeled Tehran a key player in the so-called axis of evil.

13 years on, Jack Straw is long out of office, but he remains deeply engaged in the debate about

how the West should deal with Iran. He's just written a book setting the current hostilities

in an historical setting. He remains a strong advocate of dialogue and cooperation

at a time when military confrontation between Washington and Tehran seems dangerously close.

So can imaginative diplomacy avert a calamitous conflict? Well, Jack Straw joins me now. Welcome to Hard Talk. Your diplomatic

engagement with Iran spans two decades and through that period you've been an advocate for

dialogue, for engagement with Tehran. But here we are today with relations between the U. US, the UK and Tehran, toxic. So is it

a story of complete failure? It's not a story of complete failure at all. And indeed, the

nuclear negotiations, which the French German foreign ministers and I got going in the summer of 2003 by fits and starts,

led the foundation for those which President Obama and Secretary John Kerry had with President

Rahani and Foreign Minister Zarif from 2013 to 15, which led to this groundbreaking nuclear deal.

And the thing about this deal, which was agreed internationally, including by the US, was not that it was perfect, no deal is perfect,

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