Analysis: Hopes for Better Iran Ties Lag

A new day in the U.S. relationship with Iran could have given a rare foreign policy success to an administration bogged down in Iraq and often criticized as inflexible.

If that opportunity ultimately came at too high a price for the U.S., the same is probably true for Iran.

Iran is gambling that it can amass enough nuclear know-how to either build the power plants it says it wants or extract a better deal from the West down the road.

"They recognize the Iran policy is likely to be under debate, if not in some flux, with the next administration," said Suzanne Maloney, a Brookings Institution analyst. She was a top State Department analyst on Iran during the administration's shift in tactics.

"They are calculating they can wait out the Bush administration and get as much (nuclear) infrastructure as possible before they have to stop and deal," said Maloney, who is married to Takeyh, the Council on Foreign Relations analyst.

It stands to reason that if the administration dropped a hard line against any talks with Iran in favor of negotiations with conditions, the next administration might well offer Iran a bargain with no such terms.

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EDITOR'S NOTE _ Anne Gearan covers diplomacy and foreign affairs for The Associated Press, based in Washington.