Having concluded a deal with the North Koreans that seems to have, for the moment, handled the situation there, Washington now turns to two members of the Fearsome Foursome (or whatever we’re calling it these days) for talks.  This has produced the predictable wailing and gnashing of teeth in all the right places, which suggests that it may not be such a bad idea.  This blogger has been arguing for a much more radical diplomatic move vis-a-vis Iran (i.e., full normalisation of relations and engagement leading to rapprochement), but this is a promising first step in the direction of 1) taking account of the political reality of the modern Near East in which Iran is the predominant regional power and 2) ceasing the tiresome preoccupation with old hostile acts of the regime from 1979 and thereafter.  (I remember how vehemently some people argued against normalisation of relations with Vietnam in the mid-’90s, and at the time I was more sympathetic to this view, but Vietnam had killed tens of thousands of American soldiers, while we can blame Iran for, at most, a few hundred American deaths.  If we can open up diplomatic relations with the Vietnamese 20 years after the end of the war, we can surely do so with the Iranians almost 30 years after the hostage crisis when it is clearly in our interest to do so.)  These are the main things that have prevented Washington from entering into direct negotiations with Tehran for any reason.  These are the things that compelled Washington to outsource its diplomatic work to the Euro-Trio without much to show for it one way or the other. 

The belief that Iran could be bottled up and diplomatically ignored indefinitely after we destroyed the main bulwark against their power in the Near East was unrealistic and based out of the need to guide foreign policy by striking the right moral pose.  Since most observers are quite reasonably convinced that Iran has control or strong influence over the main Shi’ite militias, and these militias represent some of the main sources of violence in Iraq, it makes a certain amount of sense to talk to the masters rather than pretend that the servants are the real players.  If you could persuade or entice the masters to restrain these forces, it would be wise to do so.  If you cannot, either because Tehran will not make a deal on this or because it actually has far less control than some believe, all the more reason to get out of Iraq while the getting is good.  The sooner you can discover what is and isn’t possible in this regard, the better off you will be.