Somebody Got Hit With A Reality Stick (TM)

I don't know what they put into the water at the White House (enriched uranium, probably) but suddenly the Bush Team looks like they're going to treat Iraq, Iran and Syria as if they are credible, sovereign nations!

Yeah, I'm surprised, too!

They should, and my only worry is that this is a ploy. As in, we'll show up to your little Iraq security pow-wow, and then when you don't do what we want, then we'll start bombing you.

Hmmm. I've heard that strategy before somewhere. Which one was it? Afghanistan? Iraq?

The better question is, which one of the countries that we've waged "war" on has not followed this progression? Maybe some administrations actually intended to resolve things diplomatically (as opposed to this one, where a genuine, well-intentioned diplomatic strategy is hard to believe) and it didn't work out that way, but this seems to be our foreign policy-o-meter.