Chief among Barack Obama's attractions to American voters last year - albeit one not acknowledged in polite company - was his promise to engage diplomatic contact with Iran. Sick of the endless bog of war in the Middle East that remains President Bush's "gift" that keeps on giving, Americans wanted desperately to avoid spreading battlefronts to Iraq's big, restive neighbor to the east.

Obama stuck to his proposal that it was better to talk than shoot, even though he faced considerable slings and arrows both from the John McCain campaign and our all-knowing media shamans, for whom all options toward Iran should forever remain on the green table of military strategem.

Despite, however, relentless propaganda that has Iran seeking nuclear arms with which to roast the world, a New York Times poll last month that asked, "Do you think the United States should or should not establish diplomatic relations with Iran while Iran has a nuclear program?", was answered affirmatively by 53 percent of respondents; the hardline "should not" faction, meanwhile, retreated to 37 percent.

OK. That's where we are. So... why yet aren't there direct talks between us and the existentially threatening Persian them?

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