the FP here at The Agonist has ever called for or advocated 'naive views of engagement' with the Iranians. I've always held the position that the fax that the Swiss recieved from the Iranians would be a good start for negotiations, but by no means then end result. And I have to say it's irritating when people assume that I'm advocating any such nonsense. Diplomacy is about power and using that power in a way that avoids war and in the case of Iran war would simply be a colossal failure of the imagination. Yeah, yeah, we all know containment is a big fuck up. So was Saddam's containment. The solution to his containment sure worked out well!

I am sure there are plenty of neo-cons around who would argue JFK gave up the store during the Cuban Missile Crisis, but the fact is had JFK and his advisers not been so creative and willing to talk all might have been lost. A willingness to talk cannot and should never be equated with weakness. These constant excuses and caveats and other excuses vis-a-vis the Iranians are so annoying. I am under no illusions about the Iranian leadership--never have been. And I don't think most of the readers here are either.

^{“Is not our first thought to go on the road? The road is our source, our vault of treasures, our wealth. Only on the road does the ‘traveller’ feel like himself, at home.”
Ryszard Kapuscinski}

...of engagement at all. The quote refers to Obama and I happen to believe that the Obama camp has quite intentionally sold a naive view of engagement with Iran. I would recommend a read through his FP article - even accepting that such pieces are puffy generalities I saw a very striking contrast with the stuff that many of the guys that I respect as real specialists on Iran are putting forward.

I wasn't offering an opinion on anything else other than the notion that O'Hanlon's perspective on this isn't all that out there, and my point should not be taken as anything more. The key thing that folks who a) really know what they're talking about, and b) advocate engagement with Iran are focusing on right now in the literature is that the approach to engagement needs be not too soft and not too hard, but just right as in Goldilocks and the three bears - and that's going to be a pretty tough trick.

I tend to think I have a pretty good understanding of your perspective on power and force, particularly in the context of Iran, after all these years - and, in fact, my own is largely in agreement. Having read some of O'Hanlon's stuff and listened to a good deal more, I tend to think that the guy defies simple characterization. Understand his biases, but if one paints him in such black and white terms as to place him beyond the pale, it means setting oneself up to miss points that he has utility on - particularly to folks who come at things from the reality driven perspectives we do.

"A survey data set containing imputed values should not be analyzed uncritically as if all the data were real values." ~ Graham Kalton

^{“Is not our first thought to go on the road? The road is our source, our vault of treasures, our wealth. Only on the road does the ‘traveller’ feel like himself, at home.”
Ryszard Kapuscinski}