Despite all of that, Laingen remains as certain as he was three decades ago that engaging with Iran is the right approach for the United States.
"I've been an advocate of engagement with Iran since the hour I left," Laingen said in an interview last week in his suburban Bethesda, Md., home. "I meant it then and I've said it ever since. I'm deeply grateful now that we're beginning to maybe talk to them."
To Laingen, ever the diplomat, that's not a slam on the more hawkish stance of former President George W. Bush, who included Iran in his Axis of Evil.
"He did what was possible at the time," Laingen said of Bush. "I don't believe he should have made any particular steps to acquiesce in what the Iranians were asking of us."
But in Laingen's view, the Iranian Revolution of the late Ayatollah Khomeini remains a work in progress, and the renewed stirrings of a new generation of Iranian youth present an opening that the U.S. president should encourage -- from afar.
"I believe in regime change, but conducted internally, by them," Laingen said.