The news today is that the government of Iraq is convening a regional conference to help quell the disorder in Iraq. And they're inviting, not surprisingly, the countries in the region -- including Syria and Iran, two of Iraq's main neighbor states. And we're going to be attending too.

This is being treated as a meaningful change in the White House's policy of shunning Iran and Syrian and preferring to deal with them through confrontation, if not military force.

But is this such a change? It strikes me as not quite de minimis. But close to it. It's always risky to underestimate the number of stupid things this administration can do abroad. So, certainly, it could be worse. But are we overstating the significance of this?