and Syria messed around in Iraq, he said. Iran was supporting the Iraqi opposition when the U.S. was still supporting Saddam Hussein. It was insane to expect them to stop when the goal of a Shiite Iraq was finally in reach. The only way to solve the underlying issues was to offer Iran a "grand bargain" that would recognize the legitimacy of Iran's government and its right to a role in the region.

But that was an unthinkable thought. The White House ignored him. Democrats ignored him. The Brookings Institution declined to renew his contract.

Then he started talking about the peace offer. By then it was 2006 and the war wasn't going well and suddenly people started to respond: You mean Iran isn't evil? They helped fight the Taliban?an op-ed piece for The New York Times. This time he shared a byline with his wife, who had experienced the peace offer up close. They submitted their first draft to the CIA and the State Department on a Sunday in early December, expecting to hear back the next day.

The next morning, Leverett gave a blistering talk on Bush's Iran policy to the influential conservatives at the Cato Institute. The speech was carried live on C-SPAN. Later that day, he flew to New York and made the same arguments at a private dinner with the UN ambassadors of Russia and Britain. He was starting to have an impact.

By Tuesday, he still hadn't heard from the CIA review board.

They called on Wednesday and told him that there was nothing