News Flash: Tom Friedman not totally off his nut From today's NYT, in a column about why engaging Iran makes more sense than isolating it (e.g., culturally, Iran is much more sympathetic to the US than Saudi Arabia is):

But all this has to be accompanied with a clear declaration
that the U.S. is not seeking regime change in Iran, but a change of behavior,
that the U.S. wants to immediately restore its embassy in Tehran and that the
first thing it will do is grant 50,000 student visas for young Iranians to study
at U.S. universities.

Just do that — and then sit back and watch the most
amazing debate explode inside Iran. You can bet the farm on it.

Of course, let's not underestimate Iran's desire to challenge the US as a regional hegemon, but we seem to have no problem working with China.

There's something interesting here about reforming our cold war strategy in the Middle East. The West's straetgy in the region has been to support reliable autocrats rather than modern regimes that might tilt towards the Soviets and that seem to be less predictable. Of course, no one would characterize Iran as a modern regime, but given the social trends and tensions there, a modern regime might emerge.

Perhaps a dream scenario could be a Persian/Israeli/Turkish/Kurdish alliance that catches the Arabs in the middle and contains/marginalizes them? Stranger things have happened. I can't think of any off hand, but I'm sure there are some.  ¶ 7:30 AM