From The Guardian UK
By Matthew Yglesias

For an administration that got itself re-elected largely by bashing the alleged “flip-flops” of its opponent, the Bush team has started reversing course an awful lot. Things kicked off when, on February 13 of this year, the United States reached a nuclear deal negotiated by Assistant Secretary of State Christopher Hill, a career diplomat whose judgment was for once permitted to override that of the ideologues clustered around the vice president’s office. The deal was a reversal of more than a decade’s worth of the Republican Party’s North Korea policy, dating back to congressional GOP denunciations of the structurally-similar 1994 Agreed Framework reached by the Clinton administration. What’s more, it was in stark contrast to the administration’s policies toward Iran and Syria where, despite many calls at home and around the world for talks, the administration was steadfastly committed to a policy of isolation and, in the case of Iran, increased pressure.

Until now, that is.

Last night, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced that she would be attending a regional summit convened by the Iraqi government and including representatives from Damascus and - yes - Tehran. This is, of course, precisely the measure the bipartisan Iraq Study Group recommended in December - a recommendation that was rejected out of hand by the administration. Now, two months later, they’re suddenly on board.

Or are they? To some extent, the administration simply has no choice. The Iraqi government has diplomatic ties to Iran, and many of its leading figures have personal ties to Tehran from their years in exile. When Iraq holds a regional summit, then, it would naturally invite Iran as well as the United States - and, having been invited, the US would look exceedingly foolish not to attend.

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