It would appear that we (meaning the United States) will soon have direct talks between our Iraqi ambassador and an equivalent from Iran, in Baghdad. This is a welcome development. Iran has been causing a tremendous amount of trouble for the U.S. and the west recently and we need to figure out who to do about them.
Talking seems like a pretty good piece of the puzzle to have included. We never once withdrew from engagement with the Soviet Union during the Cold War, and for good reason. Since we can’t realistically impose regime change in Iran, and we can’t do nothing about them, we have to do other things.
The same thing should be true with our adversaries now. Diplomacy can’t be the only thing we do. But we can’t achieve our interests without first understanding our adversaries and we can’t do it without engaging them, too.
