From The Boston Globe
By H.D.S. Greenway

There was no breakthrough, but this dangerous summer got a little less so last week with the inclusion of Undersecretary of State William Burns in the Geneva meeting with Iran, alongside the other confronting powers, China, Britain, France, Germany, and Russia. Until now it has been a mano-a-mano season with Israel and the United States both in the running to be matador in the ring with Iran.

Threat and counterthreats have mounted, with Israel making practice bombing runs and Iran testing missiles that can reach Tel Aviv and US battle groups at sea. There was even a certain symmetry with Tehran faking a photograph of missiles soaring skywards, just as the United States once airbrushed intelligence to attack Iraq. There was symmetry, too, in the hawkish rhetoric of both sides.

Of course the Bush administration downplayed the course correction in order not to alarm the conservative base. But the Cheney-like John Bolton, who used to represent the United States at the United Nations, got it right when he said, “Just when you think the administration is out of U-turns, they make another one.” Bolton was vocally critical of the administration’s change of strategy handling North Korea, too, when diplomacy and incentives replaced confrontation, and got some hoped-for results.

Where Bolton got it wrong, however, was in saying: “This is further evidence of the administration’s complete intellectual collapse.” It is not an intellectual collapse but an ideological collapse. There was never anything very intellectual or intelligent about our Iran policy. It was pure ideology that never worked with Iran, nor with North Korea before. The administration used to say that it couldn’t talk to Iran because Iran was evil, and that it would be letting down the Iranian people who wanted democracy. Iran would have to submit to our will before negotiations, rather than as a result of negotiations.

The administration is still saying that nothing substantive can be discussed until Iran stops uranium enrichment, but substance is now in play. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said that “if the negotiating parties enter negotiations with respect toward the Iran nation” the powers could find Iran ready to talk.

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