Talking with Iran: the pro's

Foreign Policy: Think Again: Talking with Iran

Here's an article by (I think) a former diplomat arguing that the US talking immediately with Iran is a good idea.

Not sure that the case for that is conclusive, but there are interesting bits of history of note in the argument. For example, the section on page 2 about the post 9/11 situation starts:

In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, Tehran detained literally hundreds of suspected al Qaeda operatives seeking to flee Afghanistan into Iran. Iran repatriated at least 200 of these individuals to the then new government of Hamid Karzai, to Saudi Arabia, and to other countries. The Iranian government documented these actions to the United Nations and the United States in February 2002, including providing copies of each repatriated individual's passport.

But Iran could not repatriate all of the individuals it detained. For example, the Islamic Republic has no diplomatic relations with Egypt, and Iranian diplomats told my colleagues and me that Tehran was not able to send al Qaeda operatives of Egyptian origin back to Egypt.