Also worth reading on Iran is an article by Robert Kagan in The Washington Post. Kagan is a founder of the neoconservative Weekly Standard; his argument is that the Bush administration should take the initiative and open direct talks with Iran:
Many around the world and in the United States have imagined that the obstacle to improved Iranian behavior has been America's unwillingness to talk. This is a myth, but it will hamper American efforts now and for years to come. Eventually, the United States will have to take the plunge, as it has with so many adversaries throughout its history.This is as good a time as any. The United States is not in a position of weakness. The embarrassment of the NIE will be fleeting. Strategic realities are more durable. America remains powerful in the world and in the Middle East. The success of the surge policy in Iraq means that the United States may be establishing a sustainable position in the region -- a far cry from a year ago, when it seemed about to be driven out. If Iraq is on the road to recovery, this shifts the balance against Iran, which was already isolated.
This proposal makes sense only in a particular context. This is that talks be used to communicate to Iran that the costs of once again pursuing a military application of nuclear technology will be high - with the corollary that definitively renouncing that possibility will bring benefits in trade and access to dual-use technology. We have been close to this, in May 2003, whereupon a shift in power in Tehran put agreement out of reach.
Kagan, incidentally, is a nice instance of how those who casually use the term neoconservative to mean abrasive warmonger are merely unlettered. His short book Paradise and Power: America and Europe in the New World Order, 2003, was widely interpreted by those who hadn't read it (Mark Mardell of the BBC was a prime culprit, from my recollection) as a broadside against European weakness. It was rather a call for the US to "take more care to show what the founders called a 'decent respect for the opinion of mankind'", and to recognise that Europe is not a liability for its freedom of action in foreign policy.
