I believe everything and I believe nothing. I suspect everyone and I suspect no one.

Apologies for the Peter Sellers posts twice in a row but when I read this headline:

"White House Calls Iranian Letter a Ploy"

I could only hear Clouseau saying "Ah, ze old Iranian letter ploy."

The article itself is full of all sorts of humorous absurdities. How can something that quotes Ambassador (shouldn't it be "Acting Ambassador?") to the United Nations John Bolton who does his best Edward G. Robinson impression:

Iranians are always interested in talking right before everyone puts the squeeze on them….

"See youze guys, we're gonna put the squeeze on them with our heaters and if they don't see things our way they'll be swimming with the fishes."

There is one useful observation, though. Of course it's not made by anyone in the administration--

"The U.S. is thinking we should exhaust the stick before we try the carrot, and the international community is thinking we should exhaust the carrot before we try the stick," said Karim Sadjadpour, an analyst for the International Crisis Group think tank in Washington.

I'd just add that we don't really have a stick anymore as most of our stick happens to be stuck in Iraq. At best we can muster a small branch, probably more like a twig.

When it comes to pushing Iran around we just don't have the wood.