Fake Diplomacy

The White House's idea of diplomacy is to have the opponent unconditionally surrender, and then we'll talk.

In a major policy shift, the United States said Wednesday it is prepared to join other nations in holding direct talks with Iran on its nuclear program if Iran first agrees to stop disputed nuclear activities that the West fears could lead to a bomb.

"To underscore our commitment to a diplomatic solution and to enhance prospects for success, as soon as Iran fully and verifiably suspends its enrichment and reprocessing activities, the United States will come to the table," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in remarks prepared for delivery at the State Department.

This is not a policy shift at all. There's only one thing to talk about with Iran, and that's the suspension of uranium enrichment. So the US is basically saying "cease with the only thing we need to talk about, and then we'll talk."

And then when Iran inevitably refuses, since that would have them enter into talks without any leverage whatsoever, the White House can say "Hey, we tried to talk, but we have no options left..."

There's another caveat to the talks that has nothing to do with Iran. The US wants Russia and China to get on board with sanctions. So if everybody in the world does what for months they've refused to do, then we'll talk to them.

European diplomats told The Associated Press that the package and the U.S. announcement of a willingness to talk were conditioned on pledges from Russia and China to eventually support tough actions such as sanctions if Iran continued to defy a U.N. call to stop its disputed activities.

White House spokesman Tony Snow said the United States will not enter one-on-one talks with Iran. The European talks included Britain, France and Germany.

The press will play this as a bold step. They're walking right into the Administration's sucker-punch. And this is well-timed so that the "crisis" reaches a fever pitch before the elections.

Question for the press: how many times can you see the same movie and believe you're watching something different?