OP-ED: Mahmoud's 'Gift': The right way to exploit any fissures in the Tehran regime, Wall Street Journal, April 5, 2007

This is an ahistorical argument. Countries we talk to and open up with trade have been changed--even radically transformed--by that process (USSR, China), while countries that we sanction and isolate and do not talk to remain strong in their authoritarianism (Cuba, North Korea). Connectedness works. Just ask Vietnam. But hardliners, despite such evidence, love to argue otherwise. When Iran has a moderate president, the WSJ says, "don't negotiate anything." Ditto for when it has a hardliner president. But Nixon did go to China, over the WSJ's harshest protests, and look what it did for our side. If engagement worked with the most significant sponsor of international terrorism ever (the Sovs), then why is it so amazingly uncalled for with the Iranians? Ah yes, I forget, now we remember the Sovs as all reasonable thugs, even cuddly, rather bumbling bears. China's an even better case in point at the time when Nixon decides to go: complete nuthouse (Cultural Revolution just wrapping up) and a whacked-out leader (Mao) who said nuclear war would be cleansing, so bring it on you paper tiger! Funny how history works like that. We remember none of the positive changes when it comes to hyping the current threat. I see people's lips moving here but hear Tel Aviv and Riyadh doing the talking. I believe in wars of choice. I just like to make the decisions for myself. Like Dave Petraeus heading into Iraq in 2003, I have to ask, "Tell me how this ends?" Because if it does not end in jaw-jaw, then it ends in war-war.