Liberal Talk Radio

Watching CNN this morning, and they’re running Tony Blair’s call to bring Syria and Iran to the table to help stabilize Iraq. Now they’ve got the Syrian Ambassador talking about how willing he is to help and how sad he was that the neocons have sidelined him and his country in Iraq for the past three years!. You can almost hear him saying, “put us in coach, we’re ready to play!”

Also on CNN is Israel PM Ehud Olmert’s visit to the White House. The Israel-Lebanon dispute, in which both Syria and Iran played prominent roles, is still on people’s minds.

And, as mentioned on this week’s podcast, the Iranian Ambassador recently sat down to a three-hour dinner with James Baker.

What’s this all mean? Clearly there’s movement. There must be some really hard-core diplomacy happening behind the scenes. Syria and Iran are state sponsors of terror. That’s no good. But they also could hold the key to stabilizing the Middle East. Will George Bush’s johnny-come-lately embrace of realpolitik outweigh his steadfast neocon idealism on dealing only with democracies? Stay tuned.

update: Read this op-ed.