Diplomacy without connectivity is an exercise in frustration

■"A Frustrating Week at the U.N. for the White House Team," by Steven R. Weisman, New York Times, 17 September 2005, p. A3.

■"Why Haven't We Mined Iraq's Borders?" op-ed by Melik Raylan, Wall Street Journal, 17-18 September 2005, p. A14.

■"Don't Push Syria Away: The U.S. should have welcomed Assad," op-ed by Joshua Landis, New York Times, 17 September 2005, p. A27.

■"Why OPEC's Over a Barrel," by Michael Williams, Wall Street Journal, 17-18 September 2005, p. A2.

The White House comes out of its intense week of diplomating around the United Nations with almost nothing to show for it: nothing on North Korea, nothing on Iran, nothing new or substantial on Iraq-nothing even to show on UN reform proposals (not that the Bush people tried too hard on that last one). Having burned many bridges over the run-up to the war in Iraq and our poor effort at quelling violence there in the Sunni Triangle since, the Bush Administration now finds itself a new world order of one on many issues. You push away enough allies and refuse to run with the playing field (dealing on Syria and Iran) once you've tossed all the game pieces in the air by toppling Saddam, and lo and behold, you're pretty much out of answers and options.

I mean, if talking about mining Iraq's borders is considered a legitimate topic for discussion, we're talking an intellectual dead-end.

Me, I look at Syria and Iran and see two rancid authoritarian regimes ripe for killing with connectivity, and Damascus even already has a potential Gorby in power, something Tehran now misses with the change in administrations.

Why harp on this? Especially the notion of flipping Iran from "axis of evil" to potential strategic partner down the road?

Global oil demand will continue to grow significantly in coming years. Saudi Arabia will be able to ramp up only so much production. The only other two major-league reserve countries operating significantly below capacity (unless you consider all that oil sands in Canada . . . ) are Iraq and Iran. Iraq won't ramp up for lack of both security and foreign investments, while Iran won't until it too opens itself up successfully to FDI and foreign technology. Iran gets you Iraq.

Kill the mullahocracy with connectivity, I say. Do it for the global economy. Do it for New Core pillars India and China (and get their thanks for it). And do it to keep the Big Bang rolling in the region.

We need to play the board as it's laid out now after Saddam's fall. We need some imagination. We need Rice to step up.