The Iranian Beat Goes on ... and we invite them in, another footnote to Chapter 1 of the NIE backstory

GERTZ - ABU DHABI — The United States plans to conduct a strategic dialogue with the Gulf Cooperation Council.

The U.S. delegation are attending the Manama Dialogue, scheduled for Dec. 7-9. Gates was expected to be the most senior official to participate in the forum, organized by Bahrain and the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was said to have been invited to the summit.

Yes, he can help us.Are you kidding me?

Gulf sources said Gates was to discuss security threats to the region. They said the secretary would later meet several GCC leaders.

"In response to a question about Iran's threat to destroy Israel, Gates said,"If Iran obtains nuclear weapons no one can promise it would not use them against Israel," but that he felt Iran was only developing nukes as a `deterent'." Robert Gates, Dec 06.

The Manama Dialogue includes all six GCC states as well as Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Turkey and Yemen. Sessions would address the U.S. military presence, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and energy security.

"(GATES), along with Zbigniew Brzezinski, co-headed a task force at the Council on Foreign Relations on US policy towards Iran. One of the findings of the task force was that the US begin a dialogue with Iran."

Gates arrived in the region after the GCC summit, scheduled to take place on Dec. 3-4 in the Qatari capital of Doha. The sources said Iran, nuclear energy and the U.S. military presence would top the GCC agenda.

Former Secretary of State George Schultz (for Ronald Reagan), complained that Gates and the CIA had repeatedly tailored intelligence to fit the policy interests they favored."

"The plan to set up a joint nuclear energy plant for the production of power will top the agenda of the talks," GCC secretary-general Abdul Rahman Al Attiyah said.

Richar Haass: Well as.... Yogi Berra once said, Predictions are awfully tough, especially about the future. So I don't know if Bob Gates is going to explicitly say that, but all I can tell you is that

1) he's favored supporting a dialogue with Iran

2) I believe it's highly likely that the Baker-Hamilton group will propose some sort of regional forum, akin to existed, if you recall, at the time of Afghanistan where the neighboring countries, the US, and Russia had a standing regional forum.

I think we're probably moving towards some version of that for Iraq with a half dozen or so neighboring countries along with the US, Russia, and Europe -- and perhaps others --would have a regular set of consultations about what can be done to prevent either the breakup of the country or the civil war getting even worse. So I would think this is likely to be US policy and I don't see where people who have not been part of the Administration would have problems, necessarily, with signing on to that."

Sounds like the Congress of Vienna to me ..the outdented material is ALL from late 2006.