Negotiating with Iran. Or not.

Gareth Porter explains the latest manifestation of bad faith by the Bush-Cheney administration in its push for widening the Iraq War to Iran in Reversing Policy, U.S. "Froze" Iran Talks in March Inter Press Service 05/20/06.

US Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad, a neoconservative who seems to have more ability to grasp reality than many of the others, had won administration approval for holding talks with Iran aimed at securing their cooperation in stabilizing the situation in Iraq.

But the usual suspects, Deadeye Dick Cheney and Rummy, quashed the initiative:

The Post columnist [David Ignatius] attributes the March decision to scuttle the talks with Iran to Rice's desire for close coordination of Iran strategy with the three European countries - Britain, France and Germany - which had been conducting direct negotiations with Iran. But the decision had much less to do with multilateral diplomacy on Iran than with the determination of Vice Pres. Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld to avoid anything that legitimised the Islamic Republic of Iran.

That determination apparently overrode the preference of both Khalilzad and Rice. Rice's initial comment, just before leaving for Sydney, Australia on Mar. 16, was that talks with Iran on Iraq "could be useful".

By the time she had arrived in Sydney, however, White House National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley and an unnamed "senior U.S. official" had denigrated the idea of such talks. Rice had apparently been informed that such talks were unacceptable to powerful figures in the administration. "We will see when and if those talks [with Iran] take place," she said in Sydney. (my emphasis)

This is not a good sign for the future. Unless you're eager to worsen the disaster we know as the Iraq War by expanding it to Iran.

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