Actually, it has been tried several times before, so there’s a track-record. ~Michael Rubin

Rubin means that there have been other occasions when Westerners have talked to representatives of leaders in the Near East and North Africa.  There actually haven’t been attempts to negotiate directly with Iran and Syria on this subject, and there haven’t been direct talks with the Iranians for decades.  So that’s not much of a track-record, unless, of course, you want to argue that “those people” all think the same.