U.S. Change of Heart on Iran and Syria

Good news in today's papers -- Condi Rice has announced to Congress that the US will participate in a couple of regional conferences to discuss the Iraq situation that will include Iran and Syria. The US unwillingness to talk with these neighbors is really self-defeating, but maybe we're on a new track that can bring some peace to the neighborhood.
According to Glen Kessler in the Washington Post:

The first meeting, at the ambassadorial level, will be held next month. Then Rice will sit down at the table with the foreign ministers from Damascus and Tehran at a second meeting in April elsewhere in the region, possibly in Istanbul.

And this in a quote from Leon Panetta in Kessler's article:

"Better late than never," said Leon E. Panetta, a onetime White House chief of staff who served on the panel, headed by former secretary of state James A. Baker III and former congressman Lee H. Hamilton. Panetta said that the announcement is "an important step in trying to bring stability to Iraq" and that, combined with the recent nuclear agreement with North Korea and renewed efforts by Rice to promote Israeli-Palestinian peace, "the administration is finally recognizing that part of its arsenal is strong diplomacy."

This idea of isolating interested parties simply won't work. You can't humiliate them to the table!

Comments

Anonymous said…
Well, whoop-de-do! And we're supposed to be impressed by this?

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