Michael Leden's chronicle of the sad history of American presidents trying to negotiate with Iran ends with a quote from Jonathan Swift: You can't reason a man out of something he didn't reason himself into.
The point that Leden makes with this quote is that the Iranians cannot be reasoned out of their hatred for us. But if anything it applies even more to us. We have negotiated with Iran in spite of an unbroken chain of failures out of an unreasoning faith in negotiation. It is an axiom of our analysis that there is always a common ground, if only one can find it.
Indeed, I am not sure it is even fair to apply Swift's comment to the Iranians at all. Their hatred may be unreasoned, but their policy is not. Indeed, they have learned well from history, do whatever you want to the Americans and wait for them to come with an offer to negotiate.
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