In addition to pushing forward with unilateral sanctions on Iran, Congress has now drawn up a bill stating that Washington "is wholly capable, willing, and ready to use military force to prevent Iran from obtaining or developing a nuclear weapons capability" and calling on the Pentagon to provide Congress with a sketch of available military options against Iran.

This bill will do two things: diminish the prospect of a diplomatic resolution to the problem, and burnish its supporters' nationalist credentials in the upcoming 2010 election. Unfortunately, Congress appears more interested in using the Iran issue as a domestic political football than it does in providing assistance to the Obama administration.

The Islamic Republic is a poor, weak country that lives in a rough neighborhood, has terrible relations with the world's largest power, and recently suffered heavy blows to its legitimacy. These are the realities that underlie Iranian diplomacy on the nuclear issue. Skittishness and erratic behavior is to be expected. The best way to help the process forward would be to keep the political temperature low, which could help lower Iran's threat perception and make it more receptive to diplomatic solutions.

In the advent of his trip there, President Obama issued his thoughts on various domestic political matters in Russia. Meanwhile, his Russia adviser Michael McFaul issued a statement making clear that on the two most important issues to Russia, NATO expansion and missile defense in Central Europe, "we're not going to reassure or give or trade anything with the Russians." Reassuring and giving and trading is the nature of diplomacy. Given that reality, one wonders what the administration really hopes to achieve.