"We'll have to talk to the thugs" was the pithy headline from the New York Daily News after America's great hope in Iraq, General David Petraeus, said the US would have to talk to some of Iraq's militants.
Chastened by the hard truth that military shock and awe may make for good television, but has severe limitations in the field, the Bush administration is about to get more serious about jaw-jaw in the Iraq conflict.
That diplomacy is regaining favour within the Bush administration has been apparent for some time. The US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, is now following in the footsteps of so many of her predecessors by finally engaging in shuttle diplomacy in the Middle East after years of US neglect by this White House of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The Bush administration has just completed its first set of bilateral talks with North Korea - part of the "axis of evil", and now there is the strong possibility of contacts with that other American bogeyman, Iran.
While Gen Petraeus yesterday raised the possibility of talking to some of Iraq's "thugs" as the Daily News put it, US diplomats are about to rub shoulders with their Iranian counterparts at this weekend's conference in Baghdad.
Taking place in the heavily fortified Green Zone, the event will bring together Iraq's neighbours, including Iran, Syria, Turkey as well as the US and the other four members of the UN security council - Britain, China, France and Russia - to discuss Iraq's security.
The Bush administration has signalled its willingness for one-on-one discussion with Iran and Syria at the conference as long as the talks focus on Iraq.
"If a discussion emerges which is focused upon these goals in Iraq, they are discussions which, as diplomats, we will proceed with," David Satterfield, the state department coordinator for Iraq told the Washington Post. "We are not going to turn and walk away."
It marks a big shift from George Bush's reluctance to entertain the idea of a dialogue with either Syria or Iran at the time when James Baker unveiled the Iraq Study Group report last year, advocating precisely that.
Despite this softening of the administration's attitude to talks with Iran and Syria, administration hardliners are not happy with this new tack.
The New York Times reports that some hawks, many in the office of the vice-president Dick Cheney - surprise, surprise - do not want to be seen as making concessions to Iran, and that talking is a concession.
