How Obama should handle Iran

Is now the time for direct talks with Tehran, or for getting the world to impose sanctions?

Talk about change, said Nazila Fathi in The New York Times. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran—a country that has shared no diplomatic ties with the U.S. for three decades—sent a letter congratulating Barack Obama on his election victory. This note, along with a letter to President Bush, suggest that Tehran might finally be interested in opening a dialogue with the U.S. despite a stalemate over Iran's nuclear program.

Israel's leaders are urging Obama not to talk to Iran, said Matthew Yglesias in Think Progress, because they think that would look like "weakness." But "to my mind what would signal weakness would be to reverse a major, high-profile campaign pledge" to talk with America's enemies. Obama secured the support of nearly 80 percent of Jewish voters, so "he can afford politically" to stick to his guns.

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