US preparing a deal with Iran?

FP posted (with permission) an interesting email from Iran policy scholar Gary Sick. In it, he critiqued John Bolton's analysis of the Iran/Israel/US situation. A choice paragraph:

While much of the world was hyperventilating over the possibility that the United States (and maybe Israel) were getting ready to launch a new war against Iran, Bolton was looking at the realities and concluding that far from bombing, the U.S. was preparing to do a deal with Iran. He had noticed that over the past two years the U.S. had completely reversed its position opposing European talks with Iran.

Read the whole thing. There definitely have been some policy shifts in the Bush administration recently, and it does seem like Gates and Rice are taking the lead at the moment.

Update: Washington Post reports on a "significant" departure from prior policy: the U.S. meets with Iran in Geneva.