THE VISION THING :

The Best of Enemies? : Many people in Iran are now talking about and hoping for a reopening of relations with America. (THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, 6/12/02, NY Times)

Diplomats here insist that even Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's hard-line spiritual leader, is no longer against relations with the U.S.--he can smell the mood here too and he knows how badly Iran's economy needs U.S. investment and trade--but he wants to find a way to do it whereby he, not the reformers, gets the credit and controls it, so that any U.S. opening doesn't end up as a boost to his political opponents. [...]

[I] don't know what the final outcome will be, but I do know this: If Secretary of State Colin Powell were to announce tomorrow that he was ready to fly to Tehran and put everything on the table--an end to sanctions, Iran's nuclear program, its support for Palestinian terrorists, diplomatic relations--he would light this place on fire.

You probably can't have Powell do it, because he's a dove and therefore suspect on the Right. But you could have Cheney--a certified hawk-- do it and there just doesn't seem to be any downside. America approaches the nexus of the Islamic Revolution with open arms, offers to let bygones be bygones and to work for a peaceful propsperous future in the region. If they say "yes" we all win. If they say "no", they show themselves incapable of rising to the moment, so they lose.

Great leaders are defined by their ability to envision that which seems impossible at the moment and then to achieve it. Ronald Reagan, our most visionary president, could imagine the possibility of Iran and America reconciled, but he failed in his effort to bring it about. Does George W. Bush have that same kind of vision, that capacity for greatness?

Posted by Orrin Judd at June 13, 2002 12:18 AM