Change we can believe in! Well, maybe a little bit. Washington feels very different. I’m sure there are a lot of things about the Obama administration I will hate. But, for a moment, let’s feel optimistic. Yesterday Trita Parsi’s National Iranian American Council held a big conference on how the new administration might approach Iran. Not at a hotel or think tank, but on the inside, in a beautiful room at Hart Senate Office building, overlooking the Capitol at sunset. Along with a lot of foreign policy realists and Iran experts (a diverse group, but none of the “bomb bomb bomb Iran” variety), there were wise addresses by Senator Arlen Specter, and Cong. John Tierney, as well as by by Sen. Thomas Carper. These guys aren’t necessarily completely on board with all the NIAC proposals but they all acknowledge that the Bush Cheney don’t talk to them and make lots of threats approach hasn’t been working. So yes, let’s talk to Iran. That Obama proposal that McCain (and Hillary too) tried to depict as naive and radical during the campaign is becoming mainstream thinking.

One sign of NIAC’s influence: I get email from a neocon organization that is always going on about how the Persians can’t wait to blow up the world. They were panicked by this meeting, sending out emails asking people to call their representatives in Congress to IGNORE its recommendations. Some of the beltway’s Iranian Chalabis tried  to get the meeting cancelled. Call Joe Lieberman’s office! Call Eric Cantor’s office! Make it stop!

But to no avail. Three hundred people, a classy room on top of Capitol Hill, an administration that wants to turn the page. Trita Parsi, author of a brilliant book (and a TAC contributor) and a lot of energetic young Iranian-American men and women, trying to get us into a new era. And Senators and Congressmen willing to listen. The new era can’t come soon enough.