Political Bunker

This is just pitiful...

[I]n May 2003, just after U.S. troops occupied Baghdad. Fearing that the U.S. was about to invade Tehran, Iran approached the U.S. with an amazing offer. In a dialogue of "mutual respect," it offered to stop its backing of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, support the transformation of Hezbollah into a disarmed political party, open up its nuclear program to international inspection and accept the Arab League's two-state plan for Israel and Palestine, thus making peace with the Jewish state. In return, Tehran asked for the U.S. to abandon its plans to topple the reign of the mullahs, end sanctions, turn over antiregime terrorists and accept Iran's legitimate interests in the region.

Secretary of State Colin Powell and others in the State Department, to which the offer was sent via a Swiss intermediary, were stunned. This was a bombshell: Iran was offering to resolve all the issues separating it, the U.S. and Israel in one fell swoop. Powell, his deputy Richard Armitage and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice took the proposal to President Bush, but the discussion was immediately stopped by Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. "We don't speak to evil," they said. The proposal died right then.

When a country is governed by fear, an enemy is always desired.