The next U.S. president, whether it is Sen. John McCain or Sen. Barack Obama, should reorient American policy toward the Islamic Republic of Iran as fundamentally as President Nixon transformed American policy toward the People's Republic of China in the early 1970s.

This is the argument put forth by Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett in "Time for a U.S.-Iranian Grand Bargain," the third proposal in New America's Big Ideas series. Their idea is also explored in The Washington Monthly's just-published special report on "The Stakes, 2008."