The comparison to China is an interesting one as the US and China had already fought against each other in Korea. Tensions were high and the Chinese had a anti American

However, although the countries had shut each other out, there was no immediate threat that China posing to the United States. Nixon was able to visit China and achieve a break through on some long standing simmering issues.

Unfortunately, Iran poses an acute and immediate threat to Europe, Israel and the middle east.

With the increasing threat Iran is posing everyday, the more analogous historical case may be the Cuban Missile Crisis where the Soviet Union placed nuclear missiles in Cuba capable of striking the United States.

Here, Kennedy certainly did negotiate with the Soviet Union extensively, but he did so while erecting a blockade of military equipment from the Soviet Union and prepared for a military strike or invasion.

In the end, the Soviet Union agreed to remove the missiles in Cuba while the US removed their missiles in Turkey.

Iran believes it will greatly benefit from having a nuclear weapons. It will only agree to cease its current course of action in negotiations if it believes, as Khrushchev eventually did in the Cuban Missile Crisis, that the current course of action would be too detrimental for them to continue.

The comparison to China is an interesting one as the US and China had already fought against each other in Korea. Tensions were high and the Chinese had a anti American

However, although the countries had shut each other out, there was no immediate threat that China posing to the United States. Nixon was able to visit China and achieve a break through on some long standing simmering issues.

http://www.chizeng.com/nixon/conflict.html

Unfortunately, Iran poses an acute and immediate threat to Europe, Israel and the middle east.

With the increasing threat Iran is posing everyday, the more analogous historical case may be the Cuban Missile Crisis where the Soviet Union placed nuclear missiles in Cuba capable of striking the United States.

Here, Kennedy certainly did negotiate with the Soviet Union extensively, but he did so while erecting a blockade of military equipment from the Soviet Union and prepared for a military strike or invasion.

In the end, the Soviet Union agreed to remove the missiles in Cuba while the US removed their missiles in Turkey.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis

Iran believes it will greatly benefit from having a nuclear weapons. It will only agree to cease its current course of action in negotiations if it believes, as Khrushchev eventually did in the Cuban Missile Crisis, that the current course of action would be too detrimental for them to continue.