Obama to talk to Hamas

Check this report in the Guardian:

Obama camp 'prepared to talk to Hamas'

Is this the first sign that Obama really will be the broad-minded, 'professor-President' we're all hoping for? One that really wants to address policy problems in an objective way, where a solution is more than important that ideology?

Anyone who's read Terry Eagleton's Ideology (and agreed with it - something of a proviso) knows that to claim to have escaped the clutches of ideology is a claim of Canutian proportions.

But on foreign policy, Obama need only look at the very clearest evidence of policy failure. On Israel-Palestine, more innocents are dying than ever while Bush sits idly by, his interest in a lasting solution as small as Clinton's was great. On Iran, lumpen neocon tough-talk means that Iran is closer to a bomb, and more influential in the region, than ever.

Obama is acutely aware of such policy failure. Given that he is not hampered by extreme right-wing ideology (Bush), or extreme political pessimism (Blair) - he should do alright.