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In this town, policy disputes can rattle friendships. Take, for
example, the exceptionally nasty donnybrook about Iran policy that
erupted this week between Council on Foreign Relations President Richard Haass, former policy planning chief for Colin Powell, and his former Foggy Bottom pals Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett.

Haass lit the fuse with a piece in this week's Newsweek magazine, saying that he was never a fan of the George W. Bush policy on "regime change" and that he had agreed with the Obama administration's policy of engagement with Iran.

But "I've changed my mind," Haass wrote in the column, headlined
"Enough is enough: Why we can no longer remain on the sidelines in the
struggle for regime change in Iran."

"The nuclear talks are going nowhere," he said, and the regime stole
last June's presidential election. So the time has come for Washington
and the Euros to impose economic sanctions, condemn Tehran's human
rights violations and do whatever might be helpful, in a "nonviolent
way," to topple the outlaw regime. Seemed last night that President Obama was heading that way too.

Haass's analysis touched off a firestorm 'mongst the foreign policy
cognoscenti, perhaps in part because he had hosted a meeting at the<... >>>