One day ahead of talks between Iran and the Western powers, Congress is weighing in on the disclosure of Iran's newest secret nuclear facility near the city of Qom.

A bill was introduced Tuesday in the House that would call on Iran to allow "unfettered access" to the Qom enrichment facility and disclose the existence of any additional facilities under its control. The legislation is one of those non-binding items that doesn't actually force action, but its introduction with 33 cosponsors from both parties indicates the rising tide of congressional angst over the Iranian developments.

Democratic Rep. Hank Johnson of Georgia was the original sponsor of the legislation. A spokesman said that a vote on the measure could come this week or next. Johnson decided to get involved in the Iran issue after hearing from constituents during a talk at the Ahavath Achim Jewish congregation in Atlanta, the spokesman said.

"My resolution... supports the administration's negotiating position in Geneva and evidences the unity of Congress and the President on this critical issue," Johnson wrote in a letter to House leadership today.

Meanwhile, Johnson had some interesting words for the Jews of Georgia's 4th district when he spoke to them on Sept. 12, pledging his support for Israel but doling out some tough love in the form of criticism of the Jewish state.

"The state of Israel makes mistakes, as does any state. It sometimes takes action that undermines its interests. Its leaders too often make policy to suit their short-term political priorities, rather than the long term interests of the Israeli people," Johnson said.

"Sometimes the ferocity with which it strikes its enemies demonstrates its tremendous capacity for self-defense; other times it undermines Israel's standing in the world and sews hatred among those who suffer at its hands."

There's a massive manhunt underway following a prison break in Iraq.

The White House is starting over with its strategy to close the Guantánamo Bay prison.

The United Nations moved to curb the spread of nuclear weapons.

Allies will confront Iran about a secret nuclear fuel facility.

The new Japanese prime minister speaks English very good!

In which we scour the transcript of the State Department's daily presser so you don't have to. Here are the highlights of today's briefing by spokesman Ian Kelly:

• Hillary Clinton had meetings in New York today with the foreign ministers of South Korea, Czech Republic, Turkmenistan, and Japan. Also meeting with the presidents of Costa Rica and Georgia and participate in a trilateral dialogue with Japan and Australia.

• Obama's trilateral meeting Benjamin Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas tomorrow on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly may not actually produce any results, but it will "advance our efforts towards our ultimate goal" and "it shows that [Obama] is personally engaged in the effort," Kelly said. The U.N. Security Council meeting will be the first at the head of state level in some time.

• President Manuel Zelaya has returned to Honduras! "All I can say is reiterate our almost daily call on both sides to exercise restraint and refrain from any kind of action that would have any possible outcome in violence," said Kelly, adding "Of course, we believe that he's the democratic -- democratically elected and constitutional leader of Honduras." Senator Jim DeMint, R-S.C., disagrees.

• No comment on reports that the State Department is sitting on 25 visa applications from Iran.

• There are no plans to meet with the North Koreans in any way in New York this week and still no decision about whether Ambassador Stephen Bosworth will accept Kim Jong Il's invitation to travel there.

This morning, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hosted a secure video conference with 20 State Department officials worldwide, at about a half dozen locations.

Much of the substance of the 45-minute video conference is classified, but broad strokes were provided to Foreign Policy. Though the locations of the State Department officials participating in the call from abroad weren't disclosed, the United States has in recent years opened Iran "watching" stations at U.S. embassies in Dubai, Azerbaijan, Berlin, Turkey, and London, among key foreign locations with large Iranian expatriate populations and traffic.

Participating in the call from Washington, beyond Clinton as host, was acting Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Jeffrey Feltman. (The State Department's point person on the international talks regarding Iran's nuclear program, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Bill Burns, was traveling and did not participate.) Also thought to participate from Washington was Jillian Burns, the former head of the Iran-watching post at the U.S. Embassy in Dubai, who is now an Iran advisor in the State Department Office of Policy Planning, and Todd Schwartz, the director of the State Department's Iran office, and other members of that office.

(Clinton's former special advisor on the Gulf and Southwest Asia, Dennis Ross, who moved last month to the National Security Council to assume a job as the senior director for the central region, is taking four of his State Department staff with him to the NSC: Iran expert Ray Takeyh, assistant Ben Fishman, diplomat David Bame, and translator turned longtime Ross counselor Gamal Helal, officials said, while four former Ross aides will be absorbed elsewhere in the Department.)

Though Clinton has communicated with all of them before, getting everyone at State involved in the Iran effort together is something Clinton has wanted to do for a long time, an official said.

First, she thanked them for being the eyes and ears of the U.S. government on Iran, especially in the extraordinary weeks and months since the election.

The folks abroad gave her their take on the current situation. The consensus was that the administration's calibrated remarks on the election and its aftermath have been just the right tone, and right balance.

One participant called the election a "tectonic" shift in Iran. The consensus was also that the election and its aftermath have basically led Iran to focus on its internal politics rather than any of its bilateral or multilateral relationships, including with the United States.

Asked about Iran policy at a press appearance with the Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh Monday, Clinton said, "We've made it very clear that we wish to engage with the Iranians in accordance with President Obama's policy to discuss a broad range of issues.  That would be a bilateral channel, which we have communicated to the Iranians.  And we continue to engage in multilateral channels ... " including an invitation to participate conveyed by the European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana that Clinton said Iran has not yet responded to.

"I held a videoconference this morning with a number of our diplomats around the world who have expertise with respect to Iran," Clinton added.  "And we discussed what they saw happening, what they thought would be the responses coming from the Iranian Government, what was going on inside Iran.  So we're not prepared to talk about any specific steps, but I have said repeatedly that in the absence of some positive response from the Iranian Government, the international community will consult about next steps, and certainly next steps can include certain sanctions." 

The remarks add to numerous recent signs that the Obama administration thinks prospects for Iran responding to its engagement offer in the near term have dimmed if not been entirely extinguished. Several U.S. officials, including Defense Secretary Robert Gates in Israel last week, have recently telegraphed the administration's envisaged timeline, which would give Iran roughly until the United Nations General Assembly in mid-September to respond positively to the offer to engage in multilateral or bilateral talks on its nuclear program, or be subjected to an effort to impose more severe sanctions, including a possible ban on Iran's import of refined petroleum products.

However, U.S. officials have indicated that they do not think Russia is likely to support tougher sanctions until after December (when the U.S. and Russia are supposed to sign a new strategic arms reductions treaty). Some outside administration Iran hands have indicated they are skeptical Russia will be helpful even then, and also that China, concerned about energy costs, can be persuaded to support a tougher sanctions route that targets Iran's energy sector. Legislation being debated in Congress proposes U.S. sanctions on international energy companies that would violate such a ban from selling petroleum to the U.S. strategic petroleum reserve. But some Iran experts are concerned that unilateral American sanctions could end up splitting up the international coalition, rather than bolstering the multilateral pressure on Iran. Nonetheless, the administration has recently reportedly expressed support for the more aggressive sanctions legislation, perhaps as a way to turn up the heat and try to prompt Iran to respond to the engagement offer, as well as to avert Israel from acting unilaterally against Iran.

It's not clear the administration's hopes for engagement have totally faded. In the New York Times Sunday Magazine, columnist Roger Cohen noted in a detailed article about U.S. Iran policy that Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei had allegedly responded in writing to a letter from U.S. President Barack Obama, the existence of which was first reported by the Washington Times. Cohen described the alleged response to Obama as being viewed as somewhat disappointing.

Foreign Policy has previously been told that Obama had received a letter from the Supreme Leader's office, and that it came into the United States government through unspecified but proper channels in May or early June before Iran's June 12 elections. The letter's translation from Farsi to English was said to have been arranged by the State Department. It was described as being not a definitive "yes" or "no" to the engagement offer. It was so closely held that no Iran hands contacted at the department acknowledged being aware of it. The Swiss embassy declined to comment about whether the Swiss foreign ministry had been the channel for any such letter.

Several White House officials, contacted by Foreign Policy last month about the alleged letter from Khamenei to Obama, said, "We do not comment on private correspondence," rather than confirming or denying its existence.

As White House and Office of the Vice President aides formed a united front against widespread media speculation about a change in policy signaled by Vice President Joseph Biden's statement on a Sunday news show that Israel is a "sovereign nation" that could "determine for itself" how to deal with threats from Iran, analysts said that Israel may be wary of any such green light in any case.

In e-mails and phone calls today, administration officials insisted that Biden's comments were neither a signal of any change in policy, nor any sort of freelancing. Asked if Biden's remarks might have been part of an intentional messaging campaign to step up pressure on Iran to negotiate over its nuclear program, officials gave an emphatic "no." But for all that, the remarks were widely seen both in Washington and abroad as a message intended less for Jerusalem than for Tehran.

Israel's "biggest nightmare" is that one day the U.S. government "‘would call it and say 'OK guys, take care of it,'" said Tel Aviv University Iran expert David Menashri in a call Monday arranged by the Israeli Policy Forum, a U.S. nonprofit organization that supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Asked by ABC's George Stephanopoulos if Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was right to give Obama until the end of the year to see if engagement with Iran was succeeding before taking matters into his own hands, Biden said, "Look, Israel can determine for itself -- it's a sovereign nation -- what's in their interest and what they decide to do relative to Iran and anyone else." Repeated follow-up questions from Stephanopoulos elicited similar responses.

"Some in the [Israeli] media are portraying [Biden's comments] as a 180-degree switch and as an indication that the administration is beginning to realize that 'engagement' may not work," said former Israeli Consul General to the United Nations Alon Pinkas. "That it is absolutely NOT a change, and if anything, it should be interpreted as a bad sign rather than a positive encouragement."

Biden's message "is the absolute worst-case scenario from Israel's policy-planning perspective," Pinkas elaborated. "'We will not prevent' means the U.S. will neither support nor encourage [Israeli attacks on Iran] or in other words, 'Do what you think is appropriate, but bear the consequences.'"

Although Israeli officials have expressed unending skepticism about the Obama administration's intentions to try to engage with Iran, and are often seen as chafing against Washington, Israel has conducted an intensive campaign over the past several years to make Iran's nuclear program an international rather than just an Israeli problem.

The reason, explains Georgetown University's Daniel Byman, is that Israel doesn't want to take on Iran by itself. "Militarily, this is a difficult operation," Byman said Monday, noting that Iran's nuclear program is widely dispersed, compared with Iraq's Osirak nuclear reactor, which Israel struck in 1981. "This is much farther geographically, and that means planes can't loiter as long. They would [presumably] be flying over air space [in Iraq] controlled by the United States. You have to put together a strike package that's much more difficult. It also requires superb intelligence that may be lacking."

"There was no intention to change the position, and nothing the vice president said in any way indicates a change in U.S. position," said a White House official of Biden's remarks Sunday. "What he said and what [chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael] Mullen said taken together reflect our position: Israel is a sovereign nation, Israel is an ally and Israel has a right to defend itself and other countries cannot dictate how it defends itself. That being said, it would not be helpful if Israel were to act against Iran." Any interpretation that Biden's remarks signaled a change in U.S. policy is "spin," he added.

Biden did, however, strike a different tone when answering a similar question back on April 7. Asked if he were concerned that Netanyahu might strike Iranian nuclear facilities, Biden told CNN: "I don't believe Prime Minister Netanyahu would do that. I think he would be ill advised to do that."

How to account for the seeming discrepancy? "Any tonal difference is not intentional at all," the White House official said.

Did Biden coordinate with the White House to pressure Iran to respond to the still-outstanding offer of talks with Washington? Again, the answer from the White House was no.

Washington foreign-policy hands, however, were skeptical that the message was not quite deliberate.

"It's crazy to think the principal audience of this comment was in Jerusalem and not in Tehran," said Jon Alterman, director of Middle East Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "I think the principal goal ... is to diminish the comfort level that people in the Iranian leadership may have that their actions don't have consequences." 

Deliberate or not, Biden's comments could increase the uncertainty in Tehran about U.S. intentions. "When the Iranians are confident the U.S. is going to sit on the Israelis, that creates one set of plans," Alterman continued. "And when they can't be sure of that," that creates another.

Pinkas, the former Israeli diplomat, agreed that Biden's intended audience may have been Iran. "There is a case to be made for the U.S. to pressure Iran through an implicit Israeli pending attack," he said.

The vice president is not trying to rattle sabers through Israel, one Washington foreign-policy hand said on condition of anonymity. "But if Iran feels further isolated, it's a not unwelcome result," of what Biden said, he added.

"There may be something to the effect that the White House planned Biden's comments on Iran yesterday, to keep the Iranians off balance and honest," one Hill foreign-policy aide said Monday. "What I found interesting was the juxtaposition of Biden's comments with those of Admiral Mullen, who continue to take the cautious perspective of the U.S. military that any preemptive strike would be destabilizing and not helpful to the cause of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan."

Asked about Biden's comments during his own appearance on CBS's Face the Nation, Admiral Mullen cautioned that "any strike on Iran ... could be very destabilizing."

An Israeli strike would be risky for Israel and its U.S. ally, Georgetown's Byman stressed. "Diplomatically," said Byman, it means that "Israel is acting alone." Meanwhile, Iran "can retaliate through Hezbollah among other options" against Israeli and possibly U.S. targets, including in Iraq -- said to be a chief concern of the top U.S. military commander in Iraq, Gen. Ray Odierno. "Israel would pay that price if it was sure that the operation would succeed," Byman said. "But given military limits, that is uncertain."

Although the vice president is frequently portrayed as lacking message discipline, current and former aides that say on foreign policy, the three-decade veteran of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee is deeply knowledgeable. "He knows his brief," one aide said.

Biden's reputation "for not having an internal editor means people give him more slack," the Hill foreign-policy aide said. "It's part of his charm as well as a liability. You get the straight-up deal with him. He's not a good liar. He says what's on his mind. In some cases, that's helpful, particularly with foreign leaders."

Biden was recently asked by President Obama to lead administration efforts on Iraq, where he made a surprise visit last week. The vice president is scheduled to travel to Georgia and Ukraine later this month to signal the U.S. commitment to their independence from Moscow.

Aides say that Biden and Obama have different styles, but share highly compatible views on foreign policy and national security.

"Here is the thing," one White House official said. "While polar opposites stylistically, there were no two candidates in Democratic primary who were closer on the issues. That speech -- 'I don't oppose all wars, just [dumb] wars' -- that's Biden. He has no problem with going to war," when necessary, the official said.

Biden is seen as a "muscular Democrat, because he was a leading proponent of taking action in the Balkans," a person familiar with his thinking said on condition of anonymity. "Which is ironic, because he originally ran for his Senate office against the Vietnam war." He does not consider himself a "Scoop Jackson Democrat," as some in Democratic foreign-policy circles locate him.

At times in recent weeks, the vice president was reported to have been more forward-leaning in internal discussions about how much support the administration should express for Iranians protesting disputed elections results. In a Meet the Press interview two days after Iran's disputed elections, Biden went further than the administration had previously and said he "had doubts" that the vote count was fair. But as events moved quickly on the ground in Iran, the White House began to use increasingly strong language to condemn the Iranian regime's crackdown on demonstrators, while trying to preserve its efforts to pursue engagement with Iran.

Biden downplayed any such rift in the interview with Stephanopoulos Sunday, while reiterating the administration's singular message to Iran. "Look, the Iranian government has a choice," Biden said. "They either choose greater isolation ...or they decide to take a rightful place in the civilized, big, great nations ... And so the ball's in their court."

"They are still working to engage," CSIS's Alterman said of the Obama administration. "But the Iranians are concerned that any engagement will expose how much weaker Iran is than the United States."

Khalid Mohammed-Pool/Getty Images

What a difference a month makes. In May, Barack Obama's administration reportedly sent a letter to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reiterating the U.S. president's public offer of talks with Iran. Then in early June, the State Department said it had instructed U.S. embassies to invite Iranian diplomats to attend official American Independence Day festivities around the world.

But the "hotdog diplomacy" is off, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs announced today: The United States has rescinded its July 4 invitations to Iranian diplomats. Granted, no Iranian officials had actually RSVP'd to the invites, he acknowledged. "I don't think it's surprising that nobody's signed up to come given the events of the past days," Gibbs said. "Those invitations will no longer be extended."

And there are other potential indications that Western efforts to reach out to Iran are being put temporarily on ice. Gibbs's announcement comes a day after Italy said that it too is rescinding invitations to Iran to participate in multilateral talks going on in Trieste Italy later this week, which Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Bill Burns will attend. (Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had been scheduled to go but is recovering from surgery to repair a broken elbow.) Iran hadn't responded to that invitation, either, before it was revoked, reports said.

Obama said at a news conference yesterday that he believes prospects for near-term engagement with Iran were not high. "What we have been seeing over past couple weeks is not encouraging in terms of the path this regime may try to take," the U.S. president said.

"The international community is bearing witness to what is taking place," Obama continued. "And the Iranian government should understand that how they handle the dissent within their own country generated indigenously, internally from the Iranian people will help shape the tone not only for Iran's future, but also its relationship to other countries."

Indeed, some Middle East watchers believe the timing of news last night that the United States would send an ambassador back to Damascus Syria after a four-year absence is no coincidence, and may be related to the new Obama administration tone on Iran.

Asked about that theory, a U.S. official said: "You're warm." Syrian Embassy and Middle East expert sources noted that news reports on the envoy to Damascus seemed to have originated with the White House -- which has been in the midst of daily meetings about Iran for several days -- not the State Department.

"I think the Obama administration strategy -- while not fully formed -- was always that it wanted to engage with both Iran and Syria, and it wanted to play one side off the other," said Syria expert Andrew Tabler of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "This does have to do with that. I don't think we fully understand all of their reasoning on this ... but by announcing that it will send an ambassador to Damascus, it sends a message both to Damascus and Tehran."

"As for engagement at this point, the focus is necessarily on the events in Iran," a senior administration official emailed The Cable Wednesday of current thinking. "How could it be otherwise?"

Asked about a report in the Washington Times on the Obama administration's letter to Khamenei, the senior official said, "We have indicated a willingness to talk for a long time and have sought to communicate with the Iranians in a variety of ways. We have made it clear that any real dialogue -- multilateral or bilateral -- needed to be authoritative." 

"[I'm] not gonna get into the specifics of our different ways of communicating," the official added, "but there is an outstanding direct request from the [permanent five members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany] that was made on April 8th. The Iranians have yet to respond to that."

The apparent cooling of Obama's outreach efforts to Iran represents a tactical shift, not a change in the goal of eventually getting to engagement, Iran analysts said.

"At the end of the day, the necessity of diplomacy has not changed by this," said Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council, referring to the post-elections violence in Iran. "The political feasibility [of engagement] has changed."

"When the dust has settled, the U.S. has an interest in dealing with whoever is in charge," Parsi added. "What I don't think should be done prematurely is to determine who is standing before the dust has settled. That is the difference."

UPDATE: A State Department spokesman e-mails the following:

Since so many of you have asked us what the WH was referencing in this afternoon’s briefing, here is part of the ‘ALDAC’ cable that went out today from Secretary Clinton to posts worldwide directing them to rescind all invitations that have been extended to Iranian diplomats for July 4th events:

“Unfortunately, circumstances have changed, and participation by Iranian diplomats would not be appropriate in light of the unjust actions that the President and I have condemned.  For invitations which have been extended, posts should make clear that Iranian participation is no longer appropriate in the current circumstances.  For invitations which have not been extended, no further action is needed.” – Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, ALDAC, 6/24/09

In the week before the Iranian elections, the White House's message was simple: We are prepared to engage whatever government emerges. The logic was equally straightforward: Washington's biggest strategic interest regarding Iran is its nuclear program, not its internal governance. Once the country chose its next president, the thinking went, the Obama administration would be hoping for a response to its outreach efforts. Hard-nosed, direct diplomacy might then get underway. 

At least, that was the plan.

As the dramatic events have unfolded in Iran in the wake of its disputed vote count, the White House has had to not just recalibrate its messaging on a daily basis, but rethink the fundamental underpinnings of its policy toward the Islamic Republic and the region.

Numerous outside Iran experts have been asked to meet with the White House, NSC, and State Department in recent days, The Cable has learned, to advise the administration on messaging, language, their analysis of what's underway, and how the situation might develop.

Conversations with some of them and with sources in government indicate that Obama's bedrock commitment to diplomacy with Iran remains firm, even as the White House -- like much of the world -- is inspired, shaken, and amazed by events unfolding in the Persian Gulf country.

"Obama is dedicated to diplomacy in a manner that is almost ideological," one Iran hand in touch with the administration said. Obama has a longer term vision, he continued. "He wants to do some stuff in the Middle East over the next eight years. He may not be able to achieve half of them unless he gets this huge piece of the puzzle [Iran] right."

Obama recognizes the "interconnectedness" between the different conflicts in the Middle East, the Iran hand continued, which makes calibrating what he wants to say or do on Iran at this dizzying moment even more fraught. "He probably has the strength and posture not to let himself get shaken by stuff like this. ... If he lets himself get distracted too much by this, then the larger strategic objective [gets muddled], only four months into his presidency, and it will not be easy to succeed."

In recent days, U.S. conservatives in Congress and the media have urged Obama to speak out more openly in favor of the demonstrators and condemn the Iranian government. Washington Post columnist Robert Kagan, for instance, even accused the president of "siding with the regime." Arizona Sen. John McCain said his erstwhile rival should "speak out that this is a corrupt, flawed sham of an election, and that the Iranian people have been deprived of their rights," adding, "We support them in their struggle against a repressive, oppressive regime and they should not be subjected to four more years of Ahmadinejad and the radical Muslim clerics."

According to multiple sources, the U.S. president believes Washington has a limited ability to influence events inside Iran for the good, despite -- and even because of -- the strength of his podium. Many Iran experts agree, cautioning that more strident statements would be counterproductive, and the Iranian government today complained of U.S. "meddling" in its internal affairs and has attempted to paint opposition supporters as foreign stooges. "It's very difficult to accept that maybe there are things one cannot affect," the Iran hand said.

Even before Iran's elections, people familiar with the administration's Iran policy outreach efforts say, there was growing uncertainty in the Obama administration about whether the United States and Iran would actually get to direct engagement in the coming months. The administration has sent several quiet, diplomatic missives to Iran, and Obama has made repeated public overtures inviting direct engagement, but has apparently received no response, according to administration sources. Obama strongly feels that he has to keeping trying, they say, but thinks it will be very hard. His thinking is not just to have a compartmentalized negotatiation about Iran's nuclear program and support for terrorism, people familiar with his thinking said, but a dialogue that recognizes at some level Iran's legitimate strategic interests in the region. 

Amid the coverage of Iran's demonstrations, few noticed this week when Israel's intelligence service publicly stated that it thinks Iran could have a deployable nuclear weapon in 2014 --  an assessment almost identical to that of the much-maligned 2007 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Iran's nuclear program. Up to now, Israel has repeatedly predicted that Iran would have breakout capability for a bomb in the one-two year range.

Several sources viewed Israel's apparent shift in emphasis as significant, for two reasons: First, Israel may worry that scaring its public about the Iran threat could lead to emigration. Second, the focus on the less immediate threat in terms of the estimate of a deployable nuclear weapon might signal that the Obama administration has more time to let its complex engagement strategy play out.

One of two chief architects of that strategy is Dennis Ross, currently a special advisor for the Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. But Ross's position is said to be in flux, though the administration has been even more than typically opaque about the staffing decision. While Ross is reportedly being promoted to a senior advisor position at the NSC, some sources say the anticipated move was also intended to make him a less front-line player on Iran policy, as engagement is run out of the State Department, even as it brings him closer to the president and the White House policy nerve center.  And there is still confusion over what job exactly Ross is being promoted to: Some sources say Ross will be working above the two Near East/Persian Gulf senior directors, Daniel Shapiro and Puneet Talwar, whereas FP colleague Peter Feaver writes that he understands Ross will become the NSC senior advisor on strategic planning, the post Feaver held in the Bush administration. Iran hands are completely mum and perhaps somewhat in the dark about the Ross move, and it's all being handled with a high degree of secrecy.

The biggest uncertainty, of course, is the outcome of events underway in Iran: who will emerge as its president and how the protest movement affects the status of the clerical regime itself, especially Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei; and how that outcome will affect Washington's efforts to negotiate with the Iranian government about its nuclear program.

One way it might go, one Iran hand said, is that Ahmadinejad emerges the declared winner in the midst of domestic repression, and chooses to engage as a way to ease domestic pressure. An alternative and perhaps more likely development, he said, is that Ahmadinejad emerges the official winner and rejects international talks on any compromise altogether.

But the landscape of possible scenarios is even more uncertain than that. "Today the nominal leader of the opposition forces is a reformed radical, Mir Hossein Mousavi, who is notably lacking in personal charisma," former veteran NSC Iran official Gary Sick wrote asking if Iran is experiencing another full-scale revolution. "On the other side is the constitutional Leader, Ayatollah Khamene`i, who is widely perceived as a cautious political animal ... who compensates for his own lack of charisma by manipulation of the political system and the institutions most loyal to him ... Neither of these men seems to be fully in control of their own forces, let alone the situation."

AFP/Getty Images

"What do we do when diplomacy fails?" a State Department official working on the team of U.S. Iran policy architect Dennis Ross recently asked at the outset of a meeting on Iran, to the dismay of some of the members of outside groups in attendance.

That possibility is just one of several questions U.S. officials inside the interagency Iran policy process say they are considering. But they insist there is hardly a prevailng assumption the effort will fail, and they are doing everything in their power to make it succeed.

Just over four months into its time in office, the Obama administration is finding the Iran issue a hard slog. Its efforts to engage Tehran or develop leverage to convince it to curtail its nuclear program have yet to bear fruit. Some Washington Iran hands say there is a debate within the Obama administration over whether it's adequately seizing opportunities to get diplomacy with Iran underway, or adopting too cautious a diplomatic approach in the face of conflicting signals from Iran about whether it is even interested in coming to the table.

According to some Iran experts outside the administration, the NSC's senior director for Iran, Puneet Talwar, and U.S. Afghanistan-Pakistan envoy Richard Holbrooke are pushing for more engagement, while the Ross camp expresses the most discouragement, including by what they have described to sources as a lack of response to various communiqués sent by the U.S. government to Tehran. The Ross team is said to have been anxious to get negotiations with Iran underway even before that country's presidential elections later this month, in order to give Tehran an accelerated deadline for responding to U.S. overtures -- an approach that the White House appears to have rejected.

People in the interagency process caution that there is far less division between any of the key players in U.S. Iran policy than such talk of a "battle royale" over Iran policy would imply. And they dispute criticism the policy is not sufficiently bold or comprehensive, as former U.S. government Mideast hands Flynt and Hillary Mann Leverett argued in a recent New York Times op-ed that was widely read -- and hotly debated -- among Iran watchers.

During the campaign, "Obama was using the Nixon-Kissinger type rapprochement with China analogy," regarding Iran, said Mann Leverett, an Iran expert formerly at the State Department and the NSC, in an interview. Mann Leverett favors a "grand bargain" that would put the full range of bilateral issues on the table all at once, but says Obama "has stepped back from that kind of policy" and is "falling into line" with an incrementalist, carrots and sticks approach that she believes Iran may very well reject.

Admittedly, Iran is a challenging policy puzzle. The administration is confronting a high degree of anxiety from pro-American Arab regimes and Persian Gulf states, not to mention Israel, about possible U.S.-Iran talks and even a possible U.S.-Iran deal, which they fear could come at their expense. Just getting Iran to agree to talks, especially in the runup to the country's presidential elections, scheduled for June 12, is far from assured (one Western diplomat said he rated the odds of the United States and Iran actually getting to the negotiating table at one in five). How to respond to the U.S. offer and overcome Iran's international isolation has become a topic of debate in the Iranian campaign -- a fact some credit Obama's outreach messages with helping generate.

Then there is the time factor. Some within the administration have argued it's a mistake to push for productive talks with Iran before the outcome of its presidential elections, and favor giving Iran more time to deal with the prospect of engagement with the United States, a subject that is ideologically fraught for its leadership. The Obama administration also finds itself under tremendous pressure from Israel and some domestic constituencies -- who fear Iran will use the time to get closer to a nuclear weapon -- not to let talks drag on beyond this coming fall. Although Obama told Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last month that he thought he would be able to make a determination by the end of the year whether his efforts to engage Iran were succeeding, Israel has made clear in meetings with U.S. officials that it reserves the right to act unilaterally.

Administration officials point to Obama's April nonproliferation speech in Prague, and his Iranian New Year's video message to Iran in March as evidence that the president does have a grand strategic vision in mind. And there is less incrementalism to the policy than some critics charge, one official said on condition of anonymity. The administration won't know if there is a bold deal to be had before it actually starts talking to the Iranians, he added -- a prospect that requires Iran to say yes to talks.

"It's rather foolish to assume that the Iranians can't handle negotiations," said influential former NSC Iran hand Gary Sick, now a professor at Columbia University. "I just disagree with the whole business that the grand bargain is the only way to make progress."

Sick argues that Obama should resist pressure from different camps to set up hard deadlines and overly rigid benchmarks that will doom the effort prematurely.

"If they try to get the other countries to agree that if Iran doesn't agree to do this but this specific date, we are going to do xyz -- that is exactly what the Bush administration did and it failed," Sick said. "If you have a deadline that is too short, sanctions that are too strong, all telegraphed in advance," it will fail, he cautioned.

So far, Sick thinks Obama is resisting such overly rigid formulations. "Obama [told Netanyahu] he would decide by the end of the year [if engagement was working]," he observed. "He's not saying ‘The nuclear issue will be solved by the end of the year, or we're out of here.' He didn't say that. ... The Iranians understood that perfectly well."

Former Pentagon official and Harvard nonproliferation expert Graham Allison says the Obama administration and U.S. allies have yet to face the real dilemma: the fact that Iran mastered the technology to enrich uranium during the Bush years means that no policy option can ever take that ability away. "Everyone is trying to get their head around the challenges they face as they turn over one rock after another and find that they are left with a really horrible inheritance," Allison told The Cable. "The big takeaway from all this on both Iran and North Korea is what a lousy hand Bush left Obama."

As American audiences tuned into his appearance on the "Tonight Show with Jay Leno," President Obama tonight issued a notable video message aimed at the Iranian people and their leaders on the occasion of Nowruz, the traditional New Year's celebration in Iran and across much of Central Asia.

"In this season of new beginnings I would like to speak clearly to Iran's leaders," Obama says in the English-language recording, which is subtitled in Farsi. "We have serious differences that have grown over time. My administration is now committed to diplomacy that addresses the full range of issues before us, and to pursuing constructive ties among the United States, Iran and the international community."

"This process will not be advanced by threats," Obama continues. "We seek instead engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect."

"This is huge," said Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council, a group that supports U.S. engagement with Tehran. "First of all, he is addressing the people and the government, which has not been done before. At one point he talks about the Islamic Republic. He's signaling he’s not looking for regime change; he’s recognizing Iran’s system.

"You always heard Rice and Bush say 'Iranian regime,'" Parsi noted. “It's a big difference.” That doesn't mean Obama doesn’t support Iranian democratization, Parsi said. "But he recognizes the government that exists in Iran right now."

Parsi also found remarkable Obama's comments that he recognized Iran has a "rightful role among nations."

"When he is saying the U.S. seeks constructive ties between the U.S., Iran, and international community," Parsi added, "that is signaling strategic intent. He is making it clear is that where he wants to end up through diplomacy which he supports is a constructive, positive relationship with Iran, to put aside our enmity. That is huge."

Asked if Obama's message to Iran signals a concerted public diplomacy effort related to the Iran policy review underway, the White House official responded: "He's making clear to the Iranian people and government the future that he sees for the two countries and that we're prepared to engage in direct diplomacy."

Full text below:

Today I want to extend my very best wishes to all who are celebrating Nowruz around the world.

This holiday is both an ancient ritual and a moment of renewal, and I hope that you enjoy this special time of year with friends and family.

In particular, I would like to speak directly to the people and leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Nowruz is just one part of your great and celebrated culture. Over many centuries your art, your music, literature and innovation have made the world a better and more beautiful place.

Here in the United States our own communities have been enhanced by the contributions of Iranian Americans. We know that you are a great civilization, and your accomplishments have earned the respect of the United States and the world.

For nearly three decades relations between our nations have been strained. But at this holiday we are reminded of the common humanity that binds us together. Indeed, you will be celebrating your New Year in much the same way that we Americans mark our holidays -- by gathering with friends and family, exchanging gifts and stories, and looking to the future with a renewed sense of hope.

Within these celebrations lies the promise of a new day, the promise of opportunity for our children, security for our families, progress for our communities, and peace between nations. Those are shared hopes, those are common dreams.

So in this season of new beginnings I would like to speak clearly to Iran's leaders. We have serious differences that have grown over time. My administration is now committed to diplomacy that addresses the full range of issues before us, and to pursuing constructive ties among the United States, Iran and the international community. This process will not be advanced by threats. We seek instead engagement that is honest and grounded in mutual respect.

You, too, have a choice. The United States wants the Islamic Republic of Iran to take its rightful place in the community of nations. You have that right -- but it comes with real responsibilities, and that place cannot be reached through terror or arms, but rather through peaceful actions that demonstrate the true greatness of the Iranian people and civilization. And the measure of that greatness is not the capacity to destroy, it is your demonstrated ability to build and create.

So on the occasion of your New Year, I want you, the people and leaders of Iran, to understand the future that we seek. It's a future with renewed exchanges among our people, and greater opportunities for partnership and commerce. It's a future where the old divisions are overcome, where you and all of your neighbors and the wider world can live in greater security and greater peace.

I know that this won't be reached easily. There are those who insist that we be defined by our differences. But let us remember the words that were written by the poet Saadi, so many years ago: "The children of Adam are limbs to each other, having been created of one essence."

With the coming of a new season, we're reminded of this precious humanity that we all share. And we can once again call upon this spirit as we seek the promise of a new beginning.

Thank you, and Eid-eh Shoma Mobarak.

UPDATE: More reaction and analysis from University of Hawaii Iran expert Farideh Farhi and the Carnegie Endowment's Karim Sadjadpour: "With Obama having clearly expressed his support for reconciliation with Iran, this becomes an internal Iranian battle, and unfortunately, it won’t be resolved anytime soon. But Obama shows in this video that instead of tipping the scales in favor of the radicals, as the Bush administration did, he will pursue diplomacy to undermine their narrative that a hostile U.S. government is bent on oppressing Iran."

Farhi analyzes Khamenei's response: "The bottom line is: 'Our nation dislikes it when you again proclaim 'talks with pressure'; we talk to Iran while we pressure them as well - threat and inducement. You cannot talk to our nation this way.'"

We knew he was working in Foggy Bottom for weeks. Finally, State Department spokesman Robert Wood has revealed what Dennis Ross's title is: special advisor to the secretary of state for the Gulf and Southwest Asia.

Wood's full statement, via Politico's Ben Smith:

The Secretary is pleased to announce the appointment of Dennis B. Ross to the position of Special Advisor to the Secretary of State for The Gulf and Southwest Asia. This is a region in which America is fighting two wars and facing challenges of ongoing conflict, terror, proliferation, access to energy, economic development and strengthening democracy and the rule of law. In this area, we must strive to build support for U.S. goals and policies. To be successful, we will need to be able to integrate our policy development and implementation across a broad range of offices and senior officials in the State Department, and, in his role as Special Advisor to the Secretary, Ambassador Ross will be asked to play that role.

Specifically, as Special Advisor, he will provide to the Secretary and senior State Department officials strategic advice and perspective on the region; offer assessments and also act to ensure effective policy integration throughout the region; coordinate with senior officials in the development and formulation of new policy approaches; and participate, at the request of the Secretary, in inter-agency activities related to the region.

Ambassador Ross brings a wealth of experience not just to issues within the region but also to larger political-military challenges that flow from the area and have an impact outside of the Gulf and Southwest Asia, and the Secretary looks forward to drawing on that experience and diplomatic perspective.

Notice a country Wood seems to go out of his way to not explicitly mention in the job description?

Gary Samore, the former Clinton NSC nonproliferation hand who has been tapped by the Obama White House to serve as the new U.S. government-wide coordinator on the prevention of WMD terrorism and proliferation, has told The Cable that he attended one meeting of a high-level, track-two dialogue on Iran's nuclear program that was conducted on an unofficial basis in Europe this past year.

As The Cable reported Thursday, the track-two meetings between former U.S. officials, including Samore and former Defense Secretary William J. Perry, and current Iranian officials, including Iranian ambassador to the IAEA Ali Asghar Soltanieh, were convened by the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, and were comprised of four meetings over the past year in Europe, three in The Hague and one in Vienna.

"Just to set the record straight, I now remember that I did attend one of the Pugwash meetings with Iran, I think it was last year in The Hague," Samore said. "As I understand the ground rules, we're not supposed to disclose who was there or what was said."

In the absence of normal diplomatic relations, unofficial meetings between Iranian and U.S. figures, often conducted with a degree of secrecy, can take on a sense of magnified, even distorted importance. Public reports on the Pugwash meetings appear to have led Iranian officials to deny that "back channel" official dialogue with the Untied States was underway.

But the Pugwash dialogue was not a government-to-government dialogue, people involved make clear, and was neither initiated by the Bush or Obama administrations, nor the Iranian government, although it did involve at least two currently serving Iranian officials: Iran's ambassador and permanent representative to the IAEA, Soltanieh, and Mojtaba Samareh-Hashemi, a senior aide to Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

"All the reports that say ‘Obama talks secretly with Iran' are wrong," Paolo Cotta-Ramusino, the secretary general of Pugwash and the key mover behind the dialogue told The Cable Monday. "These were not official negotiations. First of all, the dates of all our meetings were in 2008," when the Bush administration was still in power.

"I think that we have had very good representation on the Iranian side," Cotta-Ramusino, an Italian physicist who traveled many times to Iran to develop relationships of trust with Iranian players to help initiate the dialogue, continued.

He said that the dialogue brought many technical specialists to the table and that the topic of uranium enrichment was one of the main issues discussed.

"The basic point of the Iranians is they have the right as a matter of principle to uranium enrichment under the NPT," Cotta-Ramusino continued, referring to the nuclear nonproliferation treaty. "So how can we deal with this and on the other side, be absolutely reassured on nonproliferation concerns?"

Samore, who said he attended one of the Pugwash sponsored meetings in The Hague, said that he attended in his private capacity as a nonproliferation expert at the Council on Foreign Relations. Asked about what it means when participants in an unofficial track-two dialogue end up taking "track one" government positions, Samore said there is no connection. As a private individual, he said, one can say whatever one thinks about the matter. As a government official, one must represent one's government's positions.

Asked if the fact that he had participated in such a dialogue might help reduce the conceptual obstacles to possible future official U.S. negotiations with Iran, Samore said, "I think there's an advantage to have people in the administration who have some experience dealing with Iranian experts and officials. It gives you a stronger position to mount a diplomatic effort.

"Knowledge is better than ignorance," Samore added.

He said it had not yet been determined to what extent he, as the incoming White House "WMD czar," will deal with the Iran issue.

"Such [track-two] meetings, when they work, they are extremely useful for developing options for the governments involved," said Joseph Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund. "And for giving officials a road map towards resolution of the problem. [B]ecause these meetings are private and off the record, [participants are] much more candid in explaining their real positions and what compromises might be possible in ways they could never do as part of a formal" negotiation.

One person who would speak of the dialogue only on condition of anonymity said it was his belief it was leaked to the Iranian media last week by Iranian forces trying to counter Iranian conservatives arguing for rejecting the prospect of U.S.-Iran negotiations.

As Barack Obama settles into the Oval Office and begins his stated mission of reorienting U.S. foreign policy, there's been a flurry of attention to exactly when and how Obama will open a direct dialogue with Iran, as he promised in his campaign. No question that will mark a break from the stinging rhetoric and halting, inconsistent diplomacy of the Bush years. But several sources told The Cable that the informal dialogue between senior Americans and the Iranians was much more robust in recent months than has been previously reported.

Over the past year, our sources confirmed, former Defense Secretary William Perry and a group of high-level U.S. nuclear nonproliferation specialists and U.S. experts on Iran held a series of meetings in European cities with Iranian officials under the auspices of the Pugwash group. (Pugwash, a group founded in 1957 by an international group of scientists, received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995 for advocating for the elimination of nuclear weapons.) Perry served as a member of the Obama campaign's national security working group.

Sources familiar with the meetings suggest they may be coming to light now via deliberate leaks to the Iranian media, by jockeying Iranian political power players trying to maneuver for advantage amid a shifting Washington-Tehran dynamic and their own upcoming elections in June. Among the Iranian officials who attended the Pugwash dialogues, The Cable has learned, was Ali Asghar Soltanieh, the Iranian ambassador and permanent representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna.

Patrick Clawson, director of research at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, described Soltanieh as a technocrat whose presence at the Pugwash dialogue was significant. "He matters because when he writes these reports back to the regime, they will not be thrown in the trash," Clawson said. "They will be looked at."

Adding to the intrigue, one expert said to participate in the meetings was Robert J. Einhorn, sources told The Cable. Einhorn, who was a former assistant secretary of state and top nonproliferation advisor to the Hillary Clinton campaign (and later for Obama) and is currently at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, is expected to be named undersecretary of state for arms control and international security. Einhorn did not immediately respond to a request for comment. [UPDATE: Einhorn later e-mailed that he "did not participate in the Pugwash dialogue on Iran." Asked further if he'd participated in the series of meetings being described, Einhorn said, "I have participated in no Pugwash meetings on Iran, nor any other meetings with Bill Perry on Iran. This is my last response."]

Another source informed about the Pugwash dialogue said it was spearheaded by Pugwash's General Secretary Paolo Cotta Ramassino, and consisted of four meetings over the past year, including an August meeting in The Hague and a two-day December meeting, the last one, in Vienna.  

The Pugwash-sponsored meetings, which focused on nuclear issues, are one series of what sources say are several "Track Two" discussions that have taken place between the two countries.

According to Jacqueline Shire, a former State Department nonproliferation expert who did not participate in the Pugwash forum, such Track Two dialogues typically work as follows: a think tank hand acting in an individual or institutional capacity initiates a project to hold discussions with Iranian government officials. In the process, he or she is likely to brief and be debriefed by the State Department in a quasi-official way. "He or she would check in before going and when he/she returns, to make sure the discussions don't go too far afield," Shire said. "One is acting in a private capacity, but not completely freelancing."

While Iran and the United States have not had official relations since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, they have had some limited diplomatic interactions and plenty of back-channel contacts. Relations between the two countries were further strained by the 2003 discovery that Iran had been pursuing a nuclear program and by elements within the Bush administration which supported, at least for a time, a "regime change" policy toward Iran, as well as by Iran's alleged support for militants in Iraq, Lebanon, and the Palestinian group Hamas.

Although the U.S. goal of persuading the Iranian regime to curtail its nuclear program and its support for militant groups in the region remains largely the same as during the Bush years, the new Obama administration has made clear that it intends to pursue a different approach to Tehran, including direct government-to-government talks.

"I do think that it is important for us to be willing to talk to Iran, to express very clearly where our differences are, but where there are potential avenues for progress," Obama told Al Arabiya television in the first interview he granted since becoming president earlier this week. "And we will over the next several months be laying out our general framework and approach. And as I said during my inauguration speech, if countries like Iran are willing to unclench their fist, they will find an extended hand from us."

Along with reports that the State Department is drafting a letter to the Iranian leadership and U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice's comments this week that the United States will pursue direct diplomacy with Iran, the Obama administration is undertaking an intensive policy review toward Iran even as it gets its new team members into place.

"I am seeing actions that seem to be really quite different," says Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council, a Washington group that promotes U.S. engagement with Iran. "Obama was not president for even 20 minutes when he said ‘mutual respect.' That is an Iranian buzz word. No one in the Middle East uses that more than Iran."

"By [Obama] speaking directly to the Iranian leadership and the Iranian people the way he has," says Joseph Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, "and the way he may be answering Ahmadinejad's letter, it presents his views unfiltered and it shows his respect for the Iranian nation. That's very important."

Meanwhile, the diplomatic calendar marches on. Most immediately, the Obama administration will send a representative, most likely Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs William J. Burns, to next week's meeting in Berlin of the group of U.N. Security Council permanent five members plus Germany. The P5+1, as it's known, has been the nucleus of recent international efforts to pressure Iran to abandon its uranium enrichment program in exchange for fuller international recognition and engagement and other incentives.

Contacted about an Iranian media report about alleged "secret" meetings involving Perry and Iranian officials, a U.S. government official working the Iran issue responded with a hint of rolled eyes: "This is just more of the same 'Track II' activities that so many of the participants love to think of as secret talks. There are a number of these things going on and it's hard to keep them straight. This particular one would appear to be merely another in a series of meetings under Pugwash auspices, and there have been many of them.  Absolutely nothing to do with government to government."

A person familiar with the Pugwash U.S.-Iran meetings declined to speak on the record or provide many details, except to confirm Perry's participation and say that they involved four meetings in different cities in Europe over the past year. They were among the most interesting and most valuable of such meetings that have occurred, The Cable was told. (Another discreet, high-level Track Two dialogue series between the U.S. and Iran has been conducted by Thomas Pickering, the former undersecretary of state for political affairs and United Nations Association-USA cochair, who has cowritten about his experience with fellow participants William Luers, the former UNA-USA president and U.S. ambassador to Czech Republic, and Jim Walsh for the New York Review of Books.)

Messages left for Pugwash's executive director in Washington and an e-mail to Perry were not immediately returned.

 "There is one constant in U.S.-Iranian relations," one former official who dealt on Iran said. "The U.S. side is always looking for a way to speak directly to Iran. There are always ‘hints' from the Iranian side that the best way to do that is to have quiet talks between intermediaries. Any attempt to have such a discussion ...immediately devolves into publicity designed to make the U.S side look foolish."

"If I were doing the negotiations [for the U.S. government], I would really press at a principals meeting [about] whether at the end of the day, we are going to accept" if Iran can enrich uranium to low grade or not, says former ambassador-at-large Robert Gallucci, now president of the Georgetown School of Foreign Service. "I don't think we have enough folks to [make a determination] actually yet in place" -- not just assistant secretaries, but the principals, and deputies.

The kind of intensive policy review and decisions being undertaken now, Gallucci says, "are not going to be hammered out for a month or six weeks." In the meantime, "what you have got to do now is set up your willingness to engage. Short of getting the outcome you want ... you let it be known that we're willing to talk right now, that we're going to talk, not just as a reward for good behavior."

Gallucci said that he himself has participated in various recent Track Two meetings on Iran, including one led by Luers in New York, although he thought there were no currently serving Iranian officials at any of those he attended.

"I had one contribution to this, and it was entirely unwelcome," Gallucci said. "I said, ‘I don't think we can have Iran producing highly enriched uranium. Therefore, I don't believe we can have Iran produce low enriched uranium. That was very unwelcome, in the sense that it means, if all else [fails], we will have to act unilaterally."

He also said that he had been asked to take a job in the Obama administration, but declined, preferring to contribute in a more project-based or advisory panel capacity (he previously served on a national security advisory board panel for CIA, he mentioned). He declined to say what the job he turned down was.

UPDATE: Jeffrey Boutwell, executive director of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, offered more perspective in a call Friday morning. He confirmed Pugwash was the sponsoring organization for the Track Two "Resuming constructive U.S.-Iranian dialogue" that occurred, as we reported, in four meetings in Europe throughout 2008 (three meetings in The Hague, and one in Vienna).

They were, he said, "wide-ranging, atmospheric discussions: how to move beyond the 1953 coup and the 1979 revolution; how to move beyond the historical baggage that is holding back U.S.-Iranian relations."

"Then," he added, "getting into the larger issues of US-Iran relations: security and the entire Middle East .... Iran's wish to be integrated in the wider world ......Then a specific discussion about Iranian nuclear program: concerns about the motivation for Iran's program, how to increase transparency ...how to have its program be totally transparent and no misgivings about any military uses ...how to achieve that last aim ... and establish a constructive dialogue."

Boutwell said there were currently serving senior Iranian officials participating in the discussions of equal or greater seniority than Ambassador Soltanieh, but declined to identify them.

He said that members of the group met in 2008 with several key members of Obama's circle of advisors, "people now moving into positions of influence."

He confirmed Perry's participation, but would not comment on whether Einhorn participated or attended.

Boutwell added that it is his belief that it would be a "huge mistake for the administration to delay talking to Iran until after the June Presidential election, in the (mistaken) belief that somehow this will improve Ahmedinejad's re-election chances. Iranians will vote mainly on domestic economic issues. More important, waiting until June sends the wrong signal... that the US is not serious about re-establishing dialogue, and the various issues that need discussion (enrichment, Iraq, Afghanistan) will only get more complicated over the next six months." 

Photo: File; TORSTEN BLACKWOOD/AFP/Getty Images

U.S. Afghanistan/Pakistan envoy Amb. Richard Holbrooke has asked Middle East and Islamic world scholar Vali Nasr, a professor at the Fletcher School, to serve as his senior advisor, Nasr confirms. Though best known perhaps for his scholarship on Iran and the Sunni-Shia divide, Nasr has also written about Pakistan and ethnic violence in South Asia. Asked if the move might signal that Holbrooke intends to take a regional approach that includes Afghanistan's neighbors, among them Iran, Nasr says not necessarily: "I have long running expertise on South Asia as well and was involved in campaigns as advisor on Pakistan." But it does lend that perception.

"This is good," said one Washington South Asia expert about the Nasr hire. "Vali did some work in the past on Pakistan, including a short book on [Jama 'at-i Islami] JI - Islamist party in the region. So in addition to his understanding of the wider middle east and Sunni/shi'a stuff, he has a familiarity with South Asia. Obviously Vali has spent more recent time on Iran, and that could pay off when it comes to Afghanistan regional approaches."

"I don't know about regional," another Washington South Asia expert said, "but it signals that [Holbrooke] has identified a very knowledgeable person."