The 1975 Helsinki Accords on human rights, thought at the time to be a toothless agreement, turned out in restrospect to give dissidents in the European communist countries, particularly the Soviet Union, a place to stand since they could pretend they were supporting a policy their governments had proclamied.

I wonder if there may not be the same opportunity with the Ahmadinejad letter.  Powerline has the AP story on the letter, which includes some of its text, including this paragraph:

There are prisoners in Guantanamo Bay that have not been tried, have no legal representation, their families cannot see them and are obviously kept in a strange land outside their own country. There is no international monitoring of their conditions and fate. No one knows whether they are prisoners, POWs, accused or criminals.

Why not take Ahmadinejad at his word and offer to let an Iranian team visit whatever part of Guantanamo they want so long as an allied team can visit a principal Iranian prison (hopefully well—chosen), examine the conditions of its prisoners, the cases against them, and dispositions of cases of recent inmates? 

Can't hurt.

Greg Richards   5 10 06