Bush Burns American Flag

U.S., Iran to hold rare talks; subject is Iraq

Bush finally broke down this past week and agreed to meet with Iran, breaking the longstanding tradition of refusing to negotiate with pretty much any nation he doesn't like. To be fair to Bush, his stubborn nature remain intact as they only agreed to speak about Iraq. And if Iraq wasn't getting worse by the day, he might not have even done that at all. So don't worry Bushy, I still think you're an idiot.

Mission Accomplished.

Both sides are calling the talks "negotiations," but I think that might be a misnomer. A better description might be "two old people sitting a room agreeing about nothing." Some people called the meeting a "positive and optimistic development," although I think it is probably more like a calm before the nuclear storm. Still, the talks are the highest-level negotiations to take place between the countries in quite some time. Judging by the prime motivation behind the talks on the part of the US, this is both good and bad. On the bad side, it's taken 4 million refugees and more than 100,000 civilian casualties to get us to the table. On the good side, the way things are going we'll be having Iranian diplomats over for a tea party in no time.

As usual, Bush played it cool: "The Bush administration has long kept the Islamic regime in Tehran at arm's length, accusing it of supporting international terrorism, seeking to develop nuclear weapons and backing insurgents in Iraq. But the Iranian government is believed to have influence both with Iraq's Shiite-dominated government and with Shiite militias, and the Bush administration is under increasing pressure from even its Republican allies in Congress to show progress in Iraq."