york. it was candidate obama who himself opened the door to such a meeting with ahmadinejad during a cnn youtube debate back in 2007. listen to this. >> would you be willing to meet separately without precondition during the first year of your administration in washington or anywhere else with the leaders of iran, syria, venezuela, cuba, and north korea, in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries? >> i would. and the reason is this, that the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them, which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration is ridiculous. one of the first things that i would do in terms of moving a diplomatic effort in the region forward is to send a signal that we need to talk to iran and syria because they're going to have responsibilities if iraq collapses. >> let's bring in our senior political analyst david gergen to talk about this. the president of iran says i'm