Food for thought: repeating history, what if Iran was to Bush, what China was to Nixon

“Could James Baker be the Kissinger for President Bush? For any dialogue with Iran (or Syria) to succeed, Bush would have to eat a lot of words. He would have to recognise that America is now the supplicant, just as Nixon did when he went to China. If Tehran helped to stabilise Iraq, it would be doing Washington a favour, not the other way round. To get such a process started, the US would have to repudiate the “axis of evil” doctrine and the goal of “regime change”, lift economic sanctions and offer Iran a formal guarantee of non-aggression. To win real co-operation from Iran, it might well be necessary to go farther. Instead of demanding a suspension of the nuclear programme, America (and Britain) might have to accept that Iran will continue with enrichment and will probably, in due course, develop an atom bomb. Today such a U-turn may seem unimaginable, but no more unthinkable than Nixon’s embrace of China at the height of the Vietnam War. The restoration of ties between Iran and the West would not change America or Europe one iota, but it could transform Iran.” Anatole Kaletsky, “For Nixon, read Bush. For China, read Iran. It could change the world again.”