ARTICLE: Despite Crisis, Policy on Iran Is Engagement, By DAVID E. SANGER, New York Times, July 5, 2009

Truer words never spoken:

The emphasis was different in a separate appearance by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, who warned that any military strike on Iran "could be very destabilizing." Asked to choose between military action and permitting Iran to gain nuclear weapons capability, he said both would be "really, really bad outcomes."

That statement alone tells you we're already in a sloppy, asymmetric deterrence situation.

In the end, I don't have any problem with Obama maintaining the public fiction that we're open for talks. Eventually, some sides to this internal battle will want to talk.