Thomas P.M. Barnett

ARTICLE: Iraqi Premier Moves to Plan Regional Talks, By EDWARD WONG and HELENE COOPER, New York Times, December 6, 2006

With ISG proposal out, asking for dialogue with Syria and Iran, and the Bush White House already many times on the record saying "no way," we see Maliki deciding to take the ISG's advice and--by doing so--snubbing Bush again pre-emptively.

Good move by Maliki. Establishes his independence a bit more. Logical move. Makes him seem responsive to ISG.

By doing so, Maliki further builds the momentum toward the regional accommodation so long resisted by Bush but now apparently in the works via State.

But we need to be realistic here: the likely prices demanded by Damascus and Tehran will be substantial, rendering somewhat silly any attempted good cop (State), bad cop (White House) routine. So I would expect Ahmadinejad to continue his mocking of the Bush-administration-that-cannot-quite-bring-itself-to-admit-it-is-officially-talking-to-Iran-even-as-it-opens-channels-to-negotiate-with-Iran. PR-wise, this can easily end up looking worse than simply and openly and officially talking to Tehran by making our shame self-evident.

Then again, why should such obvious security setbacks abroad and such obvious political setbacks at home dent the hubris whatsoever?