...has his biases - particularly that they sometimes seem to be so contradictory (to an outside observer at least) that it is difficult to believe that they are found in one head!

No disagreement with what you've said above - my point was more intended simply to indicate that the guy with no links and 2 posts seemingly parachuting into a discussion involving a hot-button author who seems to attract a simply amazing amount of seemingly spontaneous comment from folks that strangely don't otherwise seem to figure in our committee of correspondence isn't entirely out to lunch.

[META WARNING: We have, of late, seemed to me to be sliding into a practice of rhetorical recce by fire in such circumstances - I understand it and I am not unsympathetic given evidence of attempted manipulation of opinion, but I think we need be a little discriminating so as not to stifle legitimate disagreement.

Folks that try to advance party lines via distortion tend not to survive long here, in any case - I've noticed that leaving room for legitimate disagreement in their specific cases often has the effect simply of providing enough rope for a quick hanging, as opposed to slow strangulation.

Those that honestly disagree, frankly, I want to hear from them.

META WARNING CONCLUDES: The above concludes our test of the META broadcasting system, if this had been a real discussion of meta issues, it would have been both more erudite and less comprehensible.]

“The absence of any US-Iran bilateral channel...may have the perverse effect of reinforcing Iranian interest in progressing in the nuclear realm so that the US will be forced to take it seriously and engage it directly." ~ Richard Haass