Jemma and the Iranians

So Jemma is playing games again.

In an event that would turn a page in American history, former president Jimmy Carter has agreed in principle to host former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami for talks during his visit to the United States starting this week.

Carter's term as president was dominated by the rupture in relations after the 1979 Iranian revolution and the takeover of the US Embassy in Tehran, where 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days until the day that Carter left office.

Iranians made the overture for the meeting, but the Carter Center in Atlanta is currently working on possible timing, according to the former president's aide, Phil Wise.

"President Carter in his role since leaving the White House has made his office and services and center available to basically anybody who wants to talk. He believes that it is much better to be talking to people who you have problems with than not to, and that's the approach he takes now," Wise said.

Turn a page? How's that? Maybe turn a page for Carter and his utopian view of how the world should work. But that served him real well when he blundered about incompetently during the Iranian crisis that got him booted from office.

I'm sure he thinks talking is better than say doing anything at all. Let's look at this from a different angle. Could the Iranians be using Carter as a bit of leverage politically? Not just in the US but on their home front? And isn't Khatami the last president of Iran who was apparently an abysmal failure? Well, maybe they can sympathize over tea. Because nothing of any value will come out of this.