An immediate impact of the decision is that Venezuela will be unable to buy spare parts from the United States to maintain its aging fleet of U.S.-made F-16 fighter jets. A senior military adviser to President Hugo Chavez said yesterday that Venezuela might now sell the planes to another country, possibly Iran.

It was not clear what Iran might do with the planes, because it is also subject to U.S. sanctions.

The United States stopped selling Venezuela sensitive upgrades for the F-16s even before the latest action, which Mr. Shannon described as "regrettable."

"This is actually an issue we've been wrestling with for quite some time," Mr. Shannon said. "We did this with a lot of reluctance, because we really want to find a way to work with them and improve our cooperation, but they are just unprepared and unwilling."

The U.S. official said that in dealing with Mr. Chavez, "the purpose is not just to ignore him," he said. "The purpose is not to allow him to define the terms of the confrontation and to make sure that as we engage with him, we are not doing so in a way that harms our larger interests. "It would be a mistake for U.S. foreign policy in the region to overly concentrate on the guy," Mr. Shannon said. "If we allow ourselves to get trapped in the kind of confrontation that he wants to have with us, it lessens our influence with others in the region."

He said the administration could no longer certify that Venezuela was cooperating on counterterrorism because of its close ties with Cuba and Iran, both of which Washington considers state sponsors of terrorism.

"Cuban intelligence has effectively cloned itself inside Venezuelan intelligence to the point that [our] ability to cooperate and have a relationship with Venezuela on the intelligence side is very difficult," Mr. Shannon said.

"We are worried about the kind of relationship [Mr. Chavez] wants to have with Iran on the intelligence side," he added. Mr. Shannon, a career diplomat serving in a post usually held by a political appointee, also expressed concern about "groups and individuals" in Venezuela with "links to terrorist organizations in the Middle East."

He declined to be more specific, but U.S. military officials have in the past noted the presence in Latin America of groups linked to Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based terrorist organization.

In addition, he said, "the western part of Venezuela has always been a wild place," and members of Colombian guerrilla groups like the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia [FARC] and the National Liberation Army [ELN] have "moved with a certain amount of ease." "But over time, we've seen what appears to be a more structured relationship," he said. "There appears to be more movement of weapons across the frontier into Colombia, and some of it comes from official Venezuelan stockpiles, and it almost certainly involves the participation of Venezuelan officials, either corrupted or not."

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Ali Rodriguez accused the Bush administration yesterday of climbing to "new heights of cynicism and shamelessness" with its Monday decision on arms sales

"Behind its despicable accusations is a useless campaign of shame designed to isolate Venezuela, destabilize its democratic government and prepare the political conditions for an attack," Mr. Rodriguez said.

Mr. Shannon, speaking broadly about Mr. Chavez's influence in the region, said he seems popular at the moment because he is "awash" in oil money.

Here is the official story on Libya, which Washington removed from its list of terror-sponsoring states this week. As the Bush administration likes to tell it, Muammar Kaddafi was scared straight by the U.S. invasion of Iraq. On Dec, 19, 2003, just six days after Saddam Hussein was hauled from his spider hole, Kaddafi gave up his life's work as an international terrorist, renouncing both his weapons of mass destruction program and his terror tactics. Shocked by the fall of his fellow dictator, Kaddafi turned into as much of a quivering stoolie as any doomed character on "The Sopranos." In a matter of months he exposed the global black market created by Pakistani nuclear scientist AQ Khan, and he began passing on intelligence about Al Qaeda and insurgent-linked groups. Now the autocrat whom Ronald Reagan once called a "mad dog" has become, in the words of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, "an important model as nations around the world press for changes in behavior by the Iranian and North Korean regimes.'' And Kaddafi's about-face is considered by Bush hard-liners to be a sweet vindication of its policy of confronting bad guys without quarter.

Here is the real story on Libya, corroborated by multiple sources. Kaddafi cut his deal in 2003 only after the British and Americans assured him that Bush would settle for "policy change"-that is, giving up his nukes-rather than regime change. Significantly, the agreement went forward only after the British, who took the real lead in the negotiations, insisted to the White House that Bush administration hard-liner John Bolton be barred from the talks. Bolton, who was then U.S. under secretary of State for arms control, had wanted to add Libya to the "axis of evil," but Jack Straw, British foreign secretary at the time, and David Manning, a top adviser to Prime Minister Tony Blair, prevailed on Rice and Secretary of State Colin Powell not to do so. Bolton also refused to reassure Tripoli that the United States did not intend regime change-in other words, he sought to take essentially the same uncompromising tack the administration is now pursuing with Iran and North Korea. The British again resisted, and the White House, which was then (as now) consumed with Iraq, didn't care enough to defy Blair on this one. Reason, for once, prevailed over ideology.


Only in one respect does the official story align with the real story. While Libya remains an antidemocratic and backward regime, it appears to have genuinely turned away from terror and WMD. Kaddafi, the terrorist poster boy from the 1980s, is cooperating fully in the fight against terrorism, according to Hank Crumpton, the unacknowledged CIA hero of the 2001 Afghanistan war and now the State Department's counterterrorism chief. So Libya is, for the moment, out of the headlines and out of our hair. Did the invasion of Iraq frighten Kaddafi into signing on the dotted line? Probably. But well before then America was negotiating with the self-admitted murderer of 189 Americans, who died together with 81 others when Libyan agents downed Pan Am Flight 103 over the Scottish town of Lockerbie in 1988. The talks with Libya also long predated the invasion of Iraq, and they began long before Tripoli gave up either its terrorist or WMD aspirations.

All of which raises an interesting question: just what kind of "model" is Libya really? It's certainly not a model for Bush's global democracy campaign; quite the opposite, in fact, although the administration is now touting the idea that diplomatic relations with Libya will give Washington more leverage in pressing for internal reform. (This is blatant nonsense: the Kaddafi clan, led by the leader's heir-to-be, his son Seif Kaddafi, will now become richer, and more powerful.) It is also a stretch to think that the Iranians or even the North Koreans are going to emulate the strategy followed by Kaddafi, who is mocked as a barmy Bedouin even by his fellow Arabs.

No, the real model that the Bush administration ought to be paying attention to is the British one for dealing with international rogues like Kaddafi. Rule one of this model is: if you can't destroy regimes-and we can't, not anymore, not after Iraq-then you try to turn them. You flip them. You hold your nose and negotiate, preferably from a position of strength. You have no other choice, unless you want to attack. And we really don't want to attack: even Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, faced with a rebellion from inside his own Pentagon, has been publicly skeptical about the military options in recent days.

Yet the Bush administration has still not learned the lesson of its greatest diplomatic success. The most distinctive thing about this administration-and the source of so many of its troubles-is its seeming inability to alter its fixed ideas even in face of new realities. Hence the administration, still romantically harking back to Ronald Reagan's rejection of détente with the Soviet Union, continues to cling to the fiction that one doesn't negotiate terms with evil regimes. Seldom does the Bush team note that Reagan, Bush's own putative model, actually did come around to negotiating an understanding with the "evil empire" in his second term, helping to lead to a peaceful end to the cold war.


This uncompromising stance is still, in effect, the president's policy toward both North Korean and Iran. In both cases the administration is pretending to negotiate through proxies-through the Europeans in the case of Iran; through the Chinese in the case of North Korea-while in practice Washington is essentially issuing ultimatums as an opening bargaining position. Bush is maintaining his insistence that these regimes give up the store-agree to surrender their WMD programs-before Washington will even come to the table. In other words, the president continues to follow the old John Bolton line.

No one is suggesting there will ever be an easy way out of the Iran and North Korea problems. But there is ample evidence that, for several years, both Iran and North Korea have been seeking assurances similar to what Kaddafi got before they will negotiate. Flynt Leverett, who served on Bush's National Security Council in the first term, revealed last week that the president has squandered previous openings with Tehran. Leverett says Bush snubbed an offer to talk from Tehran in 2003-passed on by the Swiss through a "back channel"-mainly because he didn't want to deal with an "illegitimate regime." In November 2002, according to The Washington Post, North Korean leader Kim Jong Il sent a similar message asking for a basic recognition of his right to survive, offering to resume talks if the United States "recognizes our sovereignty and assures non-aggression." In September 2005, after much prodding from China, Washington did finally agree to a statement of principles in the six-party format (which also includes Japan, South Korea and Russia, as well as the United States and North Korea) that contained an assurance that America has "no intention to attack or invade" North Korea. But Bush has refused to build on this promise in bilateral talks, which may be what Pyongyang really wants.

Morally, the restoration of Libya's diplomatic status, and the rehabilitation of Khaddafi, are pretty hard to stomach. Strategically, however, these moves were probably necessary. Even Bush must see that America can't pursue a Michael Corleone foreign policy-we can't just kill off all our enemies. The president has but two and a half years left to work things out with Iran and North Korea. It's time to stop pretending.

The possible departure from Washington's hardline stance towards North Korea appears to have been partly triggered by growing concerns over Iran's nuclear programme.

"There has been a sense that they can't leave Korea out there as a model for what the Iranians hope to become - a nuclear state that can say no to outside pressure," a senior official told the paper.

The beginning of negotiations on a peace treaty would represent a fundamental shift in US policy. During his first term in office, Mr Bush repeatedly said he would never tolerate a nuclear North Korea.

However, faced with plummeting approval ratings among US voters, the president has come under pressure to soften his approach towards the North.

Earlier this week, the former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger wrote in the Washington Post that "focusing on regime change as the road to denuclearisation confuses the issue".

Although North Koreans have long demanded a peace treaty to replace the existing 1953 armistice that ended the Korean War, it is unclear whether the country's leaders would take part in any new discussions.

The two Koreas remain technically at war because the Korean conflict ended in an armistice rather than a formal treaty.

The New York Times reported that Mr Bush's aides were hoping to start negotiations over a formal treaty that would include the original signatories of the armistice - China, North Korea and the US. They would also add South Korea, which declined to sign the original deal.

"I think it is fair to say that many in the administration have come to the conclusion that dealing head on with the nuclear problem is simply too difficult," an official told the paper.

"So the question is whether it would help to try to end the perpetual state of war [since 1953]. It may be another way to get there."

There is likely to be resistance in Pyongyang to any negotiations involving political change, human rights and opening up the country - issues Mr Bush has insisted would have to be part of any talks.

A South Korean official later insisted that negotiations on a peace treaty were likely only after substantial progress was made on ending the North's nuclear programme.

During the talks that stalled in September - which also involved the US, China, South Korea, Japan and Russia - North Korea agreed to give up nuclear weapons in return for energy, economic aid, more diplomatic recognition and a US promise not to attack.

However, a timetable for implementation was not agreed, and further negotiations broke down.

"She is welcome to come to the United States," he said at a press briefing in The Hague.

Hirsi Ali has lived under police protection since a film she wrote criticizing the treatment of women under Islam led to the murder of its director, Theo van Gogh, by an Islamic radical in November 2004.

She resigned Tuesday vowing to make a sequel to "Submission," a fictional study of women suffering abuse in Muslim households. It used scenes of near-naked women with texts from the Qur'an written on their flesh, which many Muslims found deeply offensive. She has received numerous death threats and recently was forced to leave her apartment in The Hague after neighbours complained security arrangements for her had become an unfair nuisance for them.

Zoellick declined to comment on what protection she will receive in the United States, but said "obviously she needs to be taken care of."

Hirsi Ali is "an important personage that whether in Europe or United States we can all learn from," he said.

The Dutch Immigration Minister Rita Verdonk, who is currently locked in a close race for her party's nomination and a chance to become the country's first prime minister in 2007 elections, told Hirsi Ali Monday her citizenship was automatically invalid because she had lied about her name.

Hirsi Ali had confessed the lie in a 2002 book, but Verdonk said that only came to her attention after a Dutch television program aired last week.

Hirsi Ali resigned, saying it was impossible for her to function as a Dutch politician while fighting a legal dispute over her nationality.

In a debate Tuesday, Verdonk's decision was criticized heavily from all sides in Dutch parliament, including her own libertarian VVD party - of which Hirsi Ali is also a member.

Parliament passed a resolution ordering Verdonk to reconsider her decision, or to accelerate a new naturalization application for Hirsi Ali.

But Wednesday, Verdonk said she doubted she would change her mind.

"We have laws in the Netherlands, and those laws say when you can become Dutch," she said at a campaign event in Almere. "However fantastic I may think Ayaan is, I can't say yes, I must say no, and I have to uphold the law."

Hirsi Ali says she bears Verdonk no ill will.

"I'm still crazy about Rita. It would be vicious and opportunistic if I were to think otherwise," Hirsi Ali said after her tearful resignation announcement. "Verdonk applied the rules the way she read them."

Hirsi Ali has declined to confirm reports she intended to go to the American Enterprise Institute.

But the conservative think-tank's president, Christopher DeMuth, said in an open letter Tuesday he was "looking forward to welcoming you to AEI, and to America."

"It's as if you think that 'they' don't think like you do -- it's like you believe they are governed by a different set of rules when they think," explained study author Dr. Jason Mitchell, a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard University's department of psychology.

His team published its findings in the May 18 issue of Neuron.

According to Mitchell, social psychologists have long known that people engage different mental criteria when thinking about the possible thoughts and actions of people within their own ethnic, cultural or political group, vs. those outside that group.

The neurological mechanisms governing this process has been much less clear, however.

"Our work is about 'other-ness,' " Mitchell said. "There's this question of 'How do I figure out what's going on inside your head? How do I make inferences about what you are feeling?' "

One theory that's gained credence among social neuroscientists is that people look to themselves when thinking about people they already include in their "group."

"If you and I are similar, then I can use what I know about myself to figure out what you are thinking," said Mitchell, who will become an assistant professor of psychology at Harvard in July.

Previous studies have shown that an area toward the front of the brain, called the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC), always lights up when people think about themselves or people they consider similar to themselves.

But which part of the mPFC activates when people think about those outside their group?

To find out, the Harvard team hooked up a group of liberal Boston college students to a functional MRI machine, which tracks real-time changes in brain energy use.

They then asked the students to read detailed profiles of two people: one, a liberal-minded person much like themselves, and the other, a fundamentalist Christian conservative with views and activities very different from their own.

"We showed that there are distinct brain regions active in the mPFC," depending on the political stripe of the object in question, Mitchell said.

When the students thought about the liberal person, the mPFC's ventral region -- strongly associated with thoughts about the self -- got very active. But it quieted down when the subject was the Christian conservative -- instead, the mPFC's dorsal area took over.

"The dorsal region is a lot more mysterious," Mitchell said. "It's more engaged when I think about a dissimilar other."

"These data challenge the naive view that we bring the same mental orientation to bear when we think about those who are similar or different from us," said study co-author Dr. Mahzarin Banaji, a professor of social ethics in Harvard's department of psychology. "In particular, it raises questions about who can, objectively speaking, sit in judgment on whom."

Mitchell stressed that scientists currently have no way to tell what kinds of thoughts get processed in the dorsal mPFC. But he suspects it could be responsible for stereotypic thoughts that fail to take similarities between people into account, and instead stress their dissimilarities. So, people may consult the dorsal mPFC when they make snap judgments that assume that the "other" does not think or act like they do.

That's unfortunate, Mitchell said, because when people of different political, racial or cultural backgrounds focus on what they have in common, tensions ease. "If I can find a way to reach common ground -- for example, we both love baseball -- that might be enough to trump our dissimilarities," he said.

Another social neuroscientist who's worked in this field praised the study.

"We already knew much of this from psychology, but what we know now is more about how this is represented in the prefrontal cortex," said Dr. Elizabeth Phelps, a professor of psychology and neural science at New York University in New York City.

She said it's natural that humans lean to stereotypes when thinking about those outside their circle.

"We evolved to be in groups, and somebody who is part of your group is seen as less of a threat than somebody who is not," she said. "And it's a natural thing to assume that people who are not like you are going to have a different set of qualities."

But Phelps also believes that we might be able to override our ingrained "dorsal" response to strangers. "I imagine that you can think compassionately, highlighting similarities between you and another person that will change your interpretation of their actions," she said.

Mitchell agreed. He said a new set of fMRI experiments will soon get under way to see if that neural switch can easily occur. But, he said, there are limits to empathy, of course.

For example, for most people, finding out that Adolf Hitler loved dogs "isn't going to be enough" to mentally allow him into one's group -- even for the most hardened dog-lover, Mitchell said.

"It's not everyday that you interact with Hitler, however," he added. "Hopefully, in your everyday life you'll encounter less extreme examples."