Iranians? What Iranians?

Oohhhhh, you mean THOSE Iranians we took in Iraq. The ones Iran says are diplomats and we say are connected to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. The ones Cheney did not want to let free:

Iranian diplomats have been given access to five Iranians for the first time since they were detained by US forces in January.

The US military says the men are linked to Iran's Revolutionary Guards and were working with armed groups in Iraq.

Iran has insisted they are diplomats and are demanding they be freed.

Hassan Kazemi-Qomi, Iran's ambassador said the meeting was "a step forward and positive".

[snip]

Iraq has been pressing the US and Iran to hold a second round of talks in Baghdad after a meeting in May where senior envoys from the two sides discussed the violence in Iraq.

"We hope this humanitarian gesture will help to ease tensions and facilitate further dialogue between the two countries," Zebari said.

Cheney's version of diplomacy: Hit them first and then talk to them as they are lying on the ground....

Hell did not freeze over

And Bush didn't collapse in a spineless heap when the U.S. and Iran held talks. Diplomacy does work:

The facility with which the US and Iran have arrived at a "broad policy agreement on Iraq" as a result of a four-hour closed meeting may have come as a minor shock to some Iran hardliners, in light of an editorial in the conservative daily Kayhan on the eve of the meeting. It predicted that "it will take a long time before the framework for the US-and-Iran dialogue becomes transparent. It is unlikely that the two sides can reach an agreement at their preliminary meeting."

But more important is the reaction of various groups, including the religio-nationalist Shi'ites of the Mahdi Army, who are increasingly turning insurgent toward the US. Their consent to any US-Iran security cooperation in Iraq is necessary. Yet it may not be forthcoming as long as the US rejects their demands for a timetable to exit Iraq.

Thus there are certain risks and "side effects" to Iran's Iraq - and regional - policy as a direct result of its dialogue with the US. That might cause disproportionate headaches both at home and in the region. Iran's politicians standing behind this new approach have their job cut out and need to show that the tangible, short- and long-term benefits outweigh the risks.

For instance, if the US releases the Iranians it has kidnapped in Iraq, then it will be an easier sell for Tehran. Yet according to a Foreign Ministry spokesperson, Iran has not been allowed a meeting with its nationals in the United States' custody and the US has not yet allowed a family visit, either.

"If the US does not follow up with baby steps to build Iran's confidence about its intentions toward Iran, then we should not expect any meaningful progress," a Tehran political-science professor told the author. Perhaps the best course of action is to adopt an experimental, trial-and-error approach whereby mutual trust can be built gradually but firmly on concrete steps toward making the Iraqi government more stable and powerful.

After the historic meeting, Iraqi National Security Adviser Mowaffak al-Rubaie, who was the sole Iraqi observer at the talks, stated that with respect to his country, there is a broad agreement between the US and Iran.

Another Iraqi official went even further by citing "goodwill, agreement and commitment" between the US and Iran. Clearly, significant ice in the frigid US-Iran environment has been broken, portending a substantive thaw.

Iraq's security is, after all, about the security of both Iran and the US, and the common threats of neo-Salafi terrorism is the chief glue that binds Tehran and Washington together. Strange bedfellows or not, the US and Iran are now on the path toward reconciliation.

Now if we could just get Bush to back off his nine warships in the Persian Gulf and Cheney to hand over those five Iranian diplomats out of his private dungeon, we might show some more goodwill and actually look like we mean it.

Hey, can'tcha take a joke?

Jokes about bombing Tehran, calling you evil doers, the axis of evil, the lovers of terrorism... jokes, all jokes!:

TEHRAN (Reuters) - The United States is showing signs of softening its attitude towards Iran, an Iranian official said on Sunday, but added that Tehran had not yet decided to attend a meeting on Iraq with senior U.S. officials.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said Iran would decide after talks this week with Iraq's foreign minister whether it would take part in an international conference next month to discuss the conflict in neighboring Iraq.

Egypt will host the high-level meeting of a group of countries that includes Syria, Turkey and the United States in the first week of May to discuss how to stop the violence in Iraq. The conference is a follow-up to one in Baghdad in March.

An Iranian newspaper reported earlier this month that Iran might not attend if U.S. forces do not release five Iranians they are holding in Iraq.

But Hosseini said Iran had not linked the meeting with other issues. "About participating or not participating, or the level of participation, this is still under examination," he told a regular briefing

[snip]

Hosseini suggested the United States was changing its stance towards Iran, saying in a response to a question:

"I agree with you on the softer tone from Miss Rice and in some American officials' statements ... it will be good if we witness this change in their behavior."

"If there is goodwill and if they correct the behavior they have had so far this will create a chance for reconsidering the kind of relations we have," he said.

Hosseini said he saw positive signs regarding the five Iranians held in Iraq, who Tehran says are diplomats but Washington accuses of links to Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards and of backing Iraqi militants.

Now if we could only do something about Cheney snarling in a corner over his 5 Iranian hostages....

Cheney overrides Condi Rice

We continue to imprision the 5 Iranian diplomats we seized in Iraq:

After intense internal debate, the Bush administration has decided to hold on to five Iranian Revolutionary Guard intelligence agents captured in Iraq, overruling a State Department recommendation to release them, according to U.S. officials.

[snip]

At a meeting of the president's foreign policy team Tuesday, the administration decided the five Iranians will remain in custody and go through a periodic six-month review used for the 250 other foreign detainees held in Iraq, U.S. officials said. The next review is not expected until July, officials say.

[snip]

The administration's decision comes at an awkward time. Washington is about to send a fourth message to Iran asking for information on the whereabouts of former FBI agent Robert A. Levinson, who has been missing since he flew to Iran's Kish Island five weeks ago. The Financial Times and Reuters reported Friday that Levinson may have met on Kish Island with Daoud Salahuddin, a convert to Islam once known as David Belfield who is still wanted by the FBI for the 1980 murder in Bethesda of Iranian dissident Ali Tabatabai.

OooHHHhhhh: the missing 'tourist' was from the FBI. Well how strange that he should disappear. Hmmm. Very odd.

Do as I say

Not as I do:

President Bush on Saturday said Iran's capture of 15 British sailors and marines was "inexcusable" and called for Iran to "give back the hostages" immediately and unconditionally.

Bush said Iran plucked the sailors out of Iraqi waters. Iran's president said Saturday they were in Iranian waters and called Britain and its allies "arrogant and selfish" for not apologizing for trespassing.

"It's inexcusable behavior," Bush said at the Camp David presidential retreat, where he was meeting with the president of Brazil. "Iran must give back the hostages. They're innocent. They did nothing wrong."

It was the first time that Bush had commented publicly on the captured Britons. Washington has taken a low-key approach to avoid aggravating tensions over the incident and shaking international resolve to get Iran to give up its uranium enrichment program.

Bush did not answer a question about whether the United States would have reacted militarily if those captured had been Americans. The president said he supports British Prime Minister Tony Blair's efforts to find a diplomatic resolution to the crisis, now in its second week.

Bush would not comment about Britain's options if Iran does not release the hostages, but he seemed to reject any swapping of the British captives for Iranians detained in Iraq.

But strangely, Bush is silent on what we have done with the 5 Iranian diplomats or how they have been treated:

WASHINGTON - As the Western media focus on the fate of 15 Britons detained for allegedly trespassing into Iranian waters, the status of five Iranian officials captured in a US military raid on a liaison office in northern Iraq on January 11 remains a mystery.

Even though high-level Iraqi officials have publicly called for their release, for all practical purposes, the Iranians have disappeared into the US-sanctioned "coalition detention" system that has been criticized as arbitrary and even illegal by many experts on international law.

Hours before US President George W Bush declared that they would "seek out and destroy the [Iranian] networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq", US forces raided what has been described as a diplomatic liaison office in the northern city of Irbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, and detained six Iranians, infuriating Kurdish officials in the process.

The troops took office files and computers, ostensibly to find evidence regarding the alleged role of Iranian agents in anti-coalition attacks and sectarian violence in Iraq. One diplomat was released, but the other five men remain in US custody and have not been formally charged with a crime.

"They have disappeared. I don't know if they've gone into the enemy combatant system," said Gary Sick, an Iran expert at Columbia University who served in the White House under president Jimmy Carter. "Nobody on the outside knows."