success of diplomacy?

re the recent commitment of, first, ms rice and, now, mr bush to diplomacy to solve the iran nuke dispute: astounding, isn't it?

early in 2003 they spoke almost gloatingly of a "failure of diplomacy" to avoid war with iraq, as if diplomacy itself were an inadequately prepared student who deservedly flunked out.

a year later it was a "failure of intelligence." who could argue with that? nobody suggested failure of strategy, failure of policy, failure of understanding. those had to wait a few years.

but let's get back to diplomacy: US diplomacy has so far failed with north korea and not long ago failed with israel/palestine. so we have the iraq mess, korean a-bombs, hamas elected.

are we willing to gamble that they'll get it right this time? how much more bush diplomacy can we afford?