Response:

This myth is belied by the last ten years of experience with Iran.  Iran's sense of grievance runs deep -- it holds the United States responsible for toppling Mossadegh, installing the tyrannical Shah, supporting Iraq in a bloody 8-year war against Iran, shooting down an Iranian airliner, and trying repeatedly to topple the regime, among other things. Clearly, Iran will not accept preconditions for dialogue with the United States, any more than the United States would accept preconditions for talking to Iran. 

But Iran has made multiple peace overtures which the United States has rebuffed.  Right after 9/11, Iran worked with the United States to get rid of the Taliban in Afghanistan, including paying for the Afghan troops serving under U.S. command. Iran helped establish the U.S.-backed government and then contributed more than $750 million to the reconstruction of Afghanistan.  Iran expressed interest in a broader dialogue in 2002 and 2003.  Instead, it was labeled part of an “axis of evil.”  

In 2005, reform-minded President Khatami was replaced by the hardliner, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.   But the same Supreme Leader who authorized earlier overtures is still in office today and he has vowed that “the day that relations with America prove beneficial for the Iranian nation, I will be the first one to approve of that.” 

This history does not prove that Iran will bargain in good faith with us.  But it does disprove the claim that we know for sure they will not.