A central recommendation of the Iraq Study Group appointed by the US Congress – to begin talks with Iran and Syria – was among the first casualties of President George W. Bush’s cavalier pick-and-choose response. But for those who wish to take the group’s report seriously, the advice raises difficult questions: what should engagement look like and what might it yield?

Talking to those the US recklessly snubbed would be progress in itself, though it risks being spectacularly short-lived. There is a touch of naivety in the hope that sitting down with Iranian or Syrian officials will suffice to persuade them to alter their policies. The belief that engagement is the ultimate reward the US can offer its foes is the flip-side of that other costly delusion – that isolation is the decisive penalty the US can inflict on them.