Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has announced that Iranian representatives will take part in a regional conference to discuss Iraqi security issues at Sharm el-Sheikh this week. Condi Rice would not rule out talking to the Iranians on yesterday’s This Week and said that, if she talked to her counterpart, she would ask him to “stop the flow of arms to foreign fighters” and to “stop the flow of foreign fighters across the borders.”
What’s interesting is that this winds up being a back door way of talking to Iran and Syria as per the Iraq Study Group recommendations.
Kingdaddy is right, too, that talks with the Iranians have to get beyond the security issues if they are to bear any fruit. “Any discussion that focuses purely on one or both of these issues omits other Iranian interests, such as its energy projects with India, Russia, and other countries. In other words, while security issues top the list, compartmentalizing them removes what little leverage the US government has with Iran.”
