Rods of Return

Speak harshly to no one,
or the words will be thrown
right back at you.
Contentious talk is painful,
for you get struck by rods in return.
-Dhammapada, 10, translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu.

Iran awaits to talk with our new President. What will they want to hear? Do we really know who the Iranians are anymore?

U.S.-led efforts to curb Iran's nuclear program have largely failed, note many supporters of diplomatic outreach, leaving Tehran still busily taking the steps it would need to build a nuclear bomb, should it choose to someday. Outreach to pull and prod Iran toward cooperation is the best option now, they assert.

Even then, they advocate diplomacy only after Iran has chosen a new president this June, so as not to inadvertently boost the current hard-liner.

And they acknowledge, even then diplomacy could fail. Even so, "Let's call the Iranians' bluff," said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, and prove Iran is "the impediment in an improvement in the relationship, not the United States." -- MSNBC -- read more