> You make it sound like China was some hapless dupe that mighty
> Washington played like a violin.
Do I ? You evidently read it that way. But it doesn't necessarily follow that I wrote it that way.
> Believe it or not, countries tend to
> make nice with other countries when they perceive a common interest.
Yes. And as another commenter on this topic noted earlier, the US and post-revolutionary Iran have over the years had dealings based on common interest -- without the requirement of a "moderate" interlocutor on the Iranian side.
What seems to happen is, "we" give 'em a call when "we" need 'em. If they see something in it for them, they take the call.
This hardly entails (as you wrote earlier) 'moving in a different direction and ... "engaging" (befriending) Iran.' Nor does it imply that Washington has accepted the verdict of 1979 any more than it ever accepted the verdict of 1959 in Cuba; and it doesn't imply that Washington wouldn't subvert the regime and get the country back into the imperial order if it saw an opportunity to do so.
Official cheerleading for the greenie-weenies in Tehran reflects the latter aspect of the imperial project; it doesn't emerge from the requirements of Realpolitik, which can operate just fine with Ahmadinejad in his post.
> I would bet that if the US does end up making friends some day with some
> "moderate" Iranian leader
Yes. Exactly. "Making friends" -- a strangely childlike expression in this context, but as long as we're schematizing, let's schematize with a right good will -- "making friends" would indeed require a "moderate" leader: "moderate", that is, in Chomsky's sense mentioned earlier.
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Michael Smith mjs at smithbowen.net http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org