Leadership Quote by Earl Blumenauer

There’s a studied calm in Blumenauer’s phrasing, the kind politicians use when they want to smuggle a controversial point past the reflexive alarms. “Aligned” is the key word: it treats geopolitics less like a morality play and more like a Venn diagram. After 9/11, the Taliban weren’t just Washington’s enemy; they were Tehran’s too. Saying so out loud punctures the long-running American habit of describing Iran as permanently, essentially antagonistic. The line insists on a messier truth: even sworn rivals can share a target, and sometimes that’s enough to build a working relationship.

The subtext is a quiet rebuke of public posturing. “Coordinate quietly but effectively” is doing heavy lifting. Quietly: because in the U.S., admitting cooperation with Iran can be politically radioactive, easily recast as weakness or betrayal. Effectively: because results, not rhetoric, are the real metric in counterterrorism and regional diplomacy. Blumenauer is signaling that the national security state already knows how to engage Iran pragmatically when it chooses to; the obstacle is less capability than political will.

Context matters: in late 2001, Iranian officials reportedly aided efforts against the Taliban and helped shape the Bonn Agreement that set up Afghanistan’s post-Taliban government. Then the Bush administration’s “Axis of Evil” speech collapsed that narrow collaboration into renewed hostility. Blumenauer’s intent is to remind listeners that the freeze was a choice, not an inevitability and that U.S. interests can sometimes be served by contact, not constant confrontation.