The time has come to start talking to Iran. This is not a particularly new recommendation since it has become a common talking point in Washington for everyone from former Secretaries of State on down to your run-of-the-mill think tanker.

But here’s something you won’t hear often.

The Bush Administration is in a perfect position to start this ball rolling.

I’m not suggesting a heart-to-heart between Bush (or the next President) and Ahmadinejad. There is certainly nothing to be gained by giving that man more airtime. He’s going to wring far more out of that than he deserves out of the press next week when he and Bush don’t meet at the UN.

I was thinking of something more along the lines of a thirty-something U.S. foreign service officer chatting up his counterpart in the Iranian Ministry of Agriculture about the upcoming World Food Program meetings in Rome. This example may seem facetious, but diplomats on the ground would be the first small step toward what is needed with Iran: contact, dialogue and, ultimately, diplomacy.

This summer, a handful of news outlets reported that the U.S. is considering staffing an interests-section in Tehran. This would be the first presence of U.S. diplomats in Iran since the hostage crisis almost thirty years ago. During that time, nearly all of our contact with Iran has been through intermediaries or through public statements.

At the same time that the interests-section stories were trickling out, Under Secretary of State William Burns sat down across from his Iranian counterparts at a meeting about Tehran’s nuclear program. He was there to listen and talk, but not “negotiate.” Normally, a State Department official showing up at a meeting with no intention of doing much would not make news. But that is the unique box we’ve put ourselves in with Iran. Merely showing up for a meeting appears to be a major shift in policy.

It is no secret that our understanding of how Iran works is woefully inadequate. We are blind and deaf with both hands tied behind our backs. So, when faced with a situation like the possibility that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, we are a tad limited in our options. We line up some allies to go carry our water in negotiations. Occasionally, we pile on some new sanctions that don’t appear to isolate Iran further than it already is. Then, we are often reduced to fighting a public relations battle through the global media, as will be the case this Monday in New York.

Introducing a U.S. presence of mid- and low-level diplomats is by no means a silver bullet to solve our problems. What such a move would do would be to start a flow of information about Iran back to the U.S. If our personnel were allowed to work freely, they could begin the slow process of forming connections to all levels of the Iranian public and private sectors. Don’t underestimate the potential for opening back channels, for determining who really holds power within the government, for ferreting out the dissatisfied and the potential reformers.

It also works in our favor if Iran rejects our offer to send diplomats. Right now, it is easy to cast the U.S. as not actively engaging in the process. By refusing to do anything but shout instructions and threats from the sidelines, we lose out on that PR war mentioned earlier. Forcing Iran to admit they don’t want to engage with us directly would shift the charge of intransigence away from us and on to them.

So let’s follow through on the State Department’s recommendation to put some personnel on the ground in Iran. It would be a truly nonpartisan move for the current Administration to take. The next Administration will have trouble taking such a step any time soon, given that “talking to Iran” appears to be equated with weak and conciliatory in today’s campaign rhetoric. But how we deal with Iran over the next decade is too critical to be reduced to partisan sniping. The next Administration will have to continue to face the Iran challenge head on. The Bush Administration can make that job just a little bit easier before they turn out the lights in the White House for the last time by dispatching a handful of dedicated diplomats to Tehran.

Related posts:

1. Will arming the Gulf solve the Iranian problem?
2. Next Steps on Iran
3. Time to Islamicize the condemnation of Iran
4. Winning Turkey’s Support on Iran
5. Russia: whose strategic partner?