On the 40th anniversary of the Six-Day War, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill reaffirming its long-standing desire to see President George W. Bush move the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the State of Israel's natural capital. The president ignored the request, but he would be well-advised to reconsider his stance. Such a move could make for smart diplomacy if it is coupled with a clear statement that he also wants the U.S. Consulate General in East Jerusalem to become the U.S. embassy to a future Palestinian state, which will be established through a negotiated peace agreement requiring both sides to make concessions on the status of Jerusalem, among other issues.

This is not the only Middle Eastern arena in which the American president would be well-advised to revisit the role and placement of his country's diplomatic facilities. If properly formulated, a unilateral announcement that America intends to reopen an embassy in Tehran could be an innovative and proactive step toward pacifying Iran.

When it comes to Tehran, America is effectively blind. For example, U.S. analysts have had inordinate difficulty tracking the effects of sanctions on prices of consumer prices in Iran without physical access to the bazaar. Instituting an Iran Regional Presence Office at the U.S. consulate in Dubai in 2006 was an important step toward training Farsi-speakers and Iran-watchers in the foreign service corps, but there is still no substitute for having diplomats in the country itself.