Iran: taking advantage

Here's a link to the Register's editorial on the latest IAEA report suggesting that Iran has been playing cat-and-mouse with international nuclear inspectors. The IAEA doesn't think Iran has a military nuclear program, but it's worried that some of the things it's doing could eventually have a military application, and that there's considerable deceit going on. We argue that precisely because the possibility of Iran acquiring nukes is tangible, now is the time to begin the process of recommencing contact that could eventually lead to renewed diplomatic ties. The U.S. acts a bit like a petulant child in a schoolyard in international relations: I don't like you so I'm not going to talk to you. We forget that one reason to have diplomatic relations is to have people (including spies) in countries that could pose problems, as we did throughout the Cold War, to learn as much as possible about them. We currently know less about Iran than we did about Iraq before the invasion, and as event have shown, we didn't know much.