Can the Kissinger model work?
WEB-EXCLUSIVE COMMENTARY By Michael Hirsh Feb. 1, 2007 – He is 83 now, very gray and a bit saggy around the edges. But nearly 40 years after he first convened the Paris Peace Talks, Henry Kissinger is still playing the globe like a three-dimensional chessboard. And judging from the moves George W. Bush has been making lately, the president appears to be following the old meister s advice on Iran. Kissinger s bottom line: don’t negotiate with Tehran until you’ve realigned the forces in the Middle East so that you’re negotiating from a position of strength. Bush is trying to realign, big time. In an extraordinary series of moves, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and other U.S. officials have been seeking to create a united front of Sunni Arab regimes and Israel against Shiite Iran as part of an aggressive new approach to Tehran. Fed up with Iran s recalcitrance in talks to curb its nuclear program, and reports of Iran s alleged complicity in attacks inside Iraq, the Bush administratio
