Liberal Talk Radio

I really thought that some crazy-ass multi-nation diplomatic grand bargain was underway this week. Newsweek says, not so much.

Who knows… these things are all done sub rosa, and we the public aren’t usually privy to the subtle machinations of international diplomacy (or otherwise unable to separate causes and effects of various geopolitical maneuvers).

Newsweek does say that the Bush team still thinks talking to Syria and Iran is a nonstarter:

At an earlier press conference, the president also brushed aside the only concrete proposal to have emerged from the deliberations of the Baker group: the idea of negotiating directly with Syria and Iran to stabilize Iraq. Bush and his aides believe that would undermine the sovereign position of Iraq’s government, as well as their own get-tough negotiating position with Damascus and Tehran. If the Iraqis want to talk to the Iranians, as they have in recent days, they are free to do so—and probably more effective at it, in the eyes of the White House.

The idea that Iraq can negotiate with them more successfully, though, seems like a stretch. Sure, it’s true, in that Moebius-strip way, that Bush has alienated the arab world so badly by not talking to them that he can’t talk to them. But the flip side is that this has to be about carrots and sticks, and the U.S. has far more carrots and sticks to offer Syria and Iran than the weak Iraqi state.