Negotiate with us Greater Satans--the Iranians, that is.
On the one hand....according to Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting [IRIB], May 25, 2007:
IRI's Ambassador to Iraq Hassan Kazemi Qomi will head Iran's team for talks with the American envoy in Iraq affairs.
The Iran-America talks on Iraq will start on Monday, May 28, said Foreign Ministry Spokesman Mohammad-Ali Hosseini in an exclusive interview with IRNA on Friday.
However, according to another story in the same venue, same day:
Interim Friday Prayer Leader of Tehran said Friday anyone that would under prevailing conditions speak of entering talks with America is deviating from late Imam Khomeini's exalted ideals.
Addressing thousands of Tehrani worshipers at Central Campus of Tehran University, Hojjatoleslam Ahmad Khatami added, "The late grand Imam's stand on refraining from entering talks with the Americans was an ideal of the Islamic Revolution."
He further reiterated, "There would be no negotiations, and when we say so, this is not a sentimental comment."

Since the Mahdi is not here yet to clear up the confusion, perhaps a lesser figure--James Baker or Lee Hamilton?--could give it a try....

Ayman al-Zawahiri, M.D. is al-Qa`idah's second-in-command and since Usama bin Ladin began emulating the Hidden Imam a few years ago, the public face and spokesman for Global Terror, Inc.  Over the weekend he released a new tape, which I analyzed for the History News Network: http://hnn.us/articles/38524.html

"Do you believe in UFOs, astral projections, mental telepathy, ESP, clairvoyance, spirit photography, telekinetic movement, full transmediums, the Loch Ness monster, the Mahdi and the theory of Atlantis?"
OK, Annie Potts didn't really mention the Mahdi when she was interviewing Ernie Hudson for the job as the fourth Ghostbuster.  But in Malaysia, where Muslim "ghostbusting" is all the rage ("Malaysian state to use Islamic 'ghostbusters," http://wwrn.org/article.php?idd=24962), perhaps that question will have to be asked of any imams hoping to bust heads--in a spiritual sense, of course. These ghostbusters--more properly, exorcists--are supposed to test the Islamic orthodoxy of religious leaders in Malaysia and "drive out evil spirits from cult followers who follow 'deviant' teachings...." No word yet on whether any of these spiritual pugilists will be carrying an unlicensed nuclear accelerator on his back.  Or whether dogs and cats have started living together in Malaysia. Or...well, you get the point.
Personally, I think it's a sign from God. 
But don't quote me on that.

In my article "A New Empire of the Mahdi? Libyan and Iranian Pan-Islamic Agendas" [see link below], I noted that al-Qadhafi's desire to resurrect the Shi`i Fatimid Caliphate dovetails with the Iranian clerical establishment's wish to (re)unite the Islamic world under Tehran's Shi`i leadership.  However, the fact that only Iran and Iraq are majority Shi`i (Lebanon has a plurality of Shi`is) rather complicates those plans.  But anecdotal evidence suggests that, in Syria at any rate, there is a growing trend of Sunni Muslims "converting" to Shi`ism; see Andrew Tabler, "Catalytic Converters," "The New York Times," April 29, 2007, available at Worldwide Religion News: http://wwrn.org/article.php?idd=24912 
According to interviews of converts, there are two main reasons for switching to Shi`i Islam: its perceived vitality and political power (especially that of Hizbullah vis-a-vis Israel); and ijtihad, "independent reasoning" in religious matters, which is much more accepted among Shi`i scholars than Sunni ones.
While the growth of Shi`i Islam at the expense of the Sunni variety is undoubtedly in some ways bad news--especially insofar as it further empowers Ahmadinezhad, Nasrallah and Moqtada al-Sadr--there may also be a silver lining therein, for Islam badly needs a reformation wrenching it into the modern world and ijtihad is probably the key to unlocking the, if you will, Wittenberg door of the closed gates of ijtihad.  Ijtihad could allow the majority of Muslims, for example, to relegate the Qur'anic passages on, say, beheading [Sura 47:3,4; Sura 8:12] to 7th c. Arabia and to be able, legitimately, to argue that they no long apply in the 21st c.  We shall see.