EDITORIAL - The hottest item in Washington political circles is Iraq and there are ongoing talks about how to salvage American policy in that country caught in sectarian fighting.

One part of the debate and search for a new course revolves around the notion of opening a serious dialogue with Iraq’s neighbors, Iran and Syria, to solicit their help in finding a solution.

Proponents of the idea of talking to Tehran’s mullahs contend that things could not get worse than they already are and that nothing can be lost by such a dialogue. Some even contend that it is against the interests of the Iranian regime for there to be chaos next door, so negotiation could actually be fruitful.

No one disputes that negotiation is part of diplomacy, or that many international disputes have been resolved through diplomacy.

But these general assumptions falter when one gets into the realpolitik of dealing with Tehran. One has to bear in mind a simple reality: Negotiation is not a goal in itself. It is only a means. And means are useful only when the negotiation bears fruit.

Suppose the U.S. initiated talks to bring Tehran into the search for a solution in Iraq. What inducement could suffice—how big a carrot could the mullahs be offered—in return for assistance by Iran?

The cold facts of reality point to but one conclusion: Neither the history, nor the trend of events in Iran, supports the argument. No matter how big the incentive, the Tehran mullahs’ appetite would not be satisfied until they devour the whole Middle East with their hegemony and their version of Islam in power.

First, some historical facts:

In the mid-1980s, when the idea of dealing with Tehran’s “moderates” first was advanced in Washington, the underlying logic had a similar tone, “What is there to lose by talking to them? And what is to be gained by isolating them?” The dealings began and went on at the highest levels for 18 months.

During the Reagan administration, in 1987, at one session of the Iran-Contra hearings, then-Secretary of State George Schultz summed up the results of the U.S. negotiations with the Tehran mullahs succinctly: “They took us to cleaners.”

“Good will begets good will....Great nations, like great men, must keep their word. When America says something, America means it, whether a treaty or an agreement or a vow made on marble steps.” This was President George H. W. Bush’s thinly veiled gesture of accommodation to the Iranian mullahs in his inaugural address in 1989. It was at the beginning of post-Khomeini Iran, and a new round of negotiations was proposed.

The results we know too well—now. Tehran’s clandestine nuclear weapons program accelerated during this period, while assassinations of dissidents abroad reached an unprecedented level. Support for radical groups in the Middle East was intensified and Tehran became the main obstacle to Middle East peace.

Democrats have had their hands-on experience, too. As the Wall Street Journal reported on November 29, according to senior diplomats in the Clinton administration, Washington “hoped it could get Iran to back a Middle East peace initiative, stop funding terrorist groups and forswear nuclear weapons, Iran, for its part, wanted the U.S. to take a hard line against the Mojahedin-e- Khalq (MEK)”, i.e., the main Iranian resistance movement.

The Wall Street Journal added that according to Martin Indyk, who at the time was Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs, “In 1997, the State Department added the MEK to a list of global terrorist organizations as ‘a signal’ of the U.S.'s desire for rapprochement with Tehran's reformists... Khatami's government "considered it a pretty big deal."

Tehran got what it wanted. Nine years later, Washington is still waiting for Tehran to deliver on its part of the bargain. And meanwhile, the Europeans kept talking and talking to the Iranians regarding every issue- Human rights, nuclear, security, trade, to name a few- but to no avail.

While all the above-mentioned concerns of 1990s vis-a-vis the Iranian regime are still valid, another issue now tops the list: Iraq.

Iraq and the clerical regime’s attitude towards it are the exemplary case in point of Tehran’s take on negotiations. According to the Washington Post of April 18, 2003, in secret negotiations prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, Iranian officials promised their American counterparts cooperation on Iraq. The Iranians claimed that they would stay out of the Iraqi picture and would seal their borders. In return, the U.S. promised to target the Iraq-based camps of the MEK.

Once again, the U.S. fulfilled its promise; it repeatedly bombed and eventually disarmed the Iranian opposition. Tehran, in return, right after the downfall of Saddam, dispatched all over Iraq thousands of Revolutionary Guards and mullahs, which it had prepared for months. The mullahs established scores of militias and terrorist cells and funneled huge caches of weapons and millions of dollars into Iraq.

Tehran’s meddling in Iraq has just gotten greater ever since.

The turn of events in the Iranian political landscape is very telling, too.

By rigging the “election” in order to install Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the regime’s president in 2005, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had, on the one hand, stepped up the war against the Iranian people, and, on the other, declared war on the international community in an attempt to thwart the advent of democratic change.

Putting Ahmadinejad into the presidency was Khamenei’s strategic decision to secure the regime's survival by obtaining nuclear weapons, devouring Iraq, and showing enmity toward peace in the region.

Make no mistake: Tehran has deployed all of its resources to achieve these goals, and it is rushing towards attaining these goals. Eight years of Western concessions and negotiations with the regime in order to strengthen the “moderate faction” simply gave Khamenei the opportunity to put in power the most extremist factions and remove all obstacles toward acquiring nuclear weapons and dominating Iraq.

To talk or not to talk to Tehran? That is not the issue.

The issue is that the mullahs have locked onto their objectives, and no negotiations are going to stop them. Negotiations would simply give them the extra time they seek to achieve their ominous objectives.

As the old saying goes: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. But how about two decades of deception and fooling called negotiations and dialogue?