The Council on Foreign Relations has published an interactive timeline on the history of U.S.-Iran relations, here. They have converted a theory put forward by Flynt “Ahmadinejad Won, Get Over It” Leverett as fact and write:

An overture from Iran for comprehensive bilateral talks is offered to U.S. officials in May shortly after the invasion of Iraq. Some experts say the proposal, conveyed via a Swiss emissary, amounts to a “grand bargain” including offers of negotiations over Iran’s support for terrorist organizations and recognition of Israel’s right to exist. During congressional hearings in 2007, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says she does not “remember ever seeing any such thing,” while former Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage says he thought the Iranians “were trying to put too much on the table” for serious negotiations to occur.

Actually, what Richard Armitage, long a proponent of engagement with the Islamic Republic, said was:

I remember talking with people from our Near East division about a fax that came in from the Swiss ambassador, and I think our general feeling was that he had perhaps added a little bit to it because it wasn’t in consonance with the state of our relations. And we had had some discussions, … particularly through intelligence channels with high-ranking Iranian intelligence people, and nothing that we were seeing in this fax was in consonance with what we were hearing face to face. So we didn’t give it much weight.

I addressed the myth of this offer, here.

The Council on Foreign Relations may want to push an agenda here, but they will do serious damage to their reputation if they play so fast and loose with the facts. Well, at least they’re not trying to revive the whole October Surprise conspiracy theory.