"Iran ready to talk with US about Iraq"

Isn't this nice and cozy? Iran has suddenly become concerned about the people in Iraq that it has been helping to blow up for the past few years.

From Jerusalem Post/AP

Iran's top nuclear negotiator said Thursday that Teheran was ready to open talks with the United States over Iraq, marking a major Iranian foreign policy shift.

This is the first time since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that Iran is officially calling for dialogue with the United States, which it has repeatedly condemned as "the Great Satan."

"To resolve Iraqi issues and help establishment of an independent and free government in Iraq, we agree to (talks with the United States)," Ali Larijani told a closed meeting of the parliament Thursday.

But on Thursday, President George W. Bush, undaunted by the difficult war in Iraq, reaffirmed his strike-first policy against terrorists and enemy nations on Thursday and said Iran may pose the biggest challenge for America.

Iran is simply trying to buy more time for its nuclear program by softening the rhetoric, and President Bush isn't falling for it.

Mohammed at Iraq The Model has this to say about it.

This development leads me to a number of important conclusions as it includes a confession from Iran that they are strongly interfering with the situation in Iraq but at the same Iran is saying that this interference is negotiable and in my opinion the bargain offer brought by al-Hakeem is in fact an Iranian proposed call for compromise because the Iranians have been talking about opening a window to talk with the US (and of course Iran wants the price for leaving Iraq alone to be leaving them alone to move on with their ambitious nuclear program).

Obviously someone deluded Iran and Syria into believing that meddling with the situation in Iraq might give them leverage and help them get out of their conflict with the international community.

Both Iran and Syria are looking forward to a deal that allows them to make some political gains in return for taking their hands off Iraq and both regimes like to say that America has to get out of the Iraqi swamp and that they are capable of getting her out of it.

But is Iraq really a swarm for America or is it a swamp for the Syrian and Iranian regimes?

I believe the latter possibility is truer; those two regimes had proven beyond doubts that they are against security and stability in Iraq and the Middle East and they had proven themselves as great supporters for terrorism maybe not realizing that by doing so they are making the world only more aware of the dangers imposed by these two regimes.

This is a very interesting take on the situation in Iran and is quite possibly true. Iran may be truly suffering from visions of grandeur brought on by its belief in infallible Islamania, and thinking that its dappling in Iraq has bought it some leverage in the nuclear arena.

There are some people on Earth, those of the Jimmy Carter ilk, that look at liars as if the slate is clean after every lie. Their reasoning is difficult to explain but appears to be consistent with my friend CoachLon's theory on Roulette, "if you see five Reds or five Blacks in a row, you bet on the opposite color." In Carterese, if Iran has lied so many times in a row, certainly soon they will tell the truth.

It appears that Iran is committing two errors here. The first is believing it has purchased even an ounce of leverage by its support of the insurgency. The second is that it hasn't yet discovered that there will only be one Jimmy Carter.

Mohammed continues:

I do not expect the US or the rational nations in this world to make a deal with losing regimes like the two in question; Iran and Syria are going against the current of logic and history and their burdens will grow heavier with time because the way they read facts and changes in the region will only lead them to more isolation and I can already see them in a confrontation with the world.

We see this coming. I wonder if Iran does.