Nothing to talk about?

The Bush administration continues to refuse to talk with regimes like Syria and Iran because they don't want to "reward" them for bad behavior. Until they meet our demands, in Iran's case a cessation of nuclear activity (I'm not quite clear what demands we're making of Syria) then we have nothing to say to them.

This stance is, of course, non-sensical. Talking with your enemies has a long and proud tradition of easing the myriad tensions to which this world is heir. Witness the cold war, and, most recently, the nuclear disarmament agreement with North Korea. During WWII we were allied with Josef frigging Stalin fer cryin' out loud.

And what could we talk about with Iran?

Well, how about this:

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Clashes broke out between police and an armed group following a bomb explosion in southeast Iran on Friday, the semi-official Fars news agency reported.

[snip]

Responsibility for that attack was claimed by a shadowy Sunni group, Jundallah (God's soldiers), which Iran has said is linked to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network. Tehran has blamed Jundallah for past killings in the area bordering Pakistan. [Emphasis mine-CK]

Golly, Iran is being plagued by a Sunni group linked to al Qaeda, who, you might vaguely remember, was the group actually responsible for the 9/11 attacks?

Sounds like a case for common interest there.

And that is just one example.

The reality, however, is that despite any number of areas where the US and Iran might find common ground (the Iraqi refugee situation and Iran's aging oil infrastructure come immediately to mind) BushCorp™ is instead focused on picking a fight.

And to clear, I'm not proposing that we ignore the dangers inherent from Iran's autocratic theocracy, what I'm saying is that instead of relying exclusively on sabre-rattling, we should at least talk about things were we share common interest.

Eliminating al Qaeda strikes me as something we should talk about, even with Iran.