CAP has an interesting panel on US policy toward Iran up. Not sure if I will make it over there, but you should.
Nuclear Meltdown: Rebuilding a Coherent Policy Towards Iran
A book discussion with Barbara Slavin and Trita Parsi
December 13, 2007, 12:30pm – 2:00pmA light buffet lunch will be served at 12:00 p.m.
Featured Panelists:
Barbara Slavin, Senior Diplomatic reporter for USA Today (on leave this year as a fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace) and the author of Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the U.S., and the Twisted Path to Confrontation
Trita Parsi, President of the National Iranian American Council and author of Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States
Moderated by:
Joseph Cirincione, Senior Fellow and Director for Nuclear Policy and co-author of Contain and Engage: A New Strategy for Resolving the Iranian Nuclear Crisis
I’ve got Slavin’s Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies on my “to read” list once I finish Arsenals of Folly and Surrender Is Not An Option, which I am hoping to skim.
Since you say you do not have Trita Parsi’s book Treacherous Alliance – let me summarize it for you: Israel and Iran got along and even cooperated, but at some point Israel decided to turn up the rhetoric since it concluded that an improved US-Iran relations is a threat to its regional ambitions and strategic value to the United States (esp. in the post- Cold War era) so they hyped up the notion of “mad mullahs” who cannot be compromised with. Basically, in a Nixon-goes-to-China scenarion, Israel doesn’t want to be Taiwan.