They seem ready to countenance political negotiations one day with authorities in Kabul, which IS would not.
Controls will not be lifted altogether in the absence of a comprehensive trade agreement and political concessions over sovereignty that neither side, for now, shows any sign of being ready to countenance.
By 1979, when the Iranian revolution interrupted oil imports again, the American public was ready to countenance a new modus operandi: environmentally destructive deregulation of the domestic energy industry and aggressive militarism to preserve oil access abroad.
And many in Pakistan will see this week's offensive against the Taliban in the Swat valley in North-West Frontier Province as an American-ordained onslaught on fellow Pakistani Muslims.The government signed a peace deal with the Taliban in Swat in February, and even seemed ready to countenance the Taliban's expansion last month into the neighbouring districts of Buner and Lower Dir.
And though Mr Wahid has, quite reasonably, made it plain that East Timor's independence should not be seen as a precedent it was, after all, a Portuguese colony until Indonesia invaded it in 1975 and then annexed it—he is ready to countenance federalism, once strictly taboo.
He was ready to talk more, ready to help.
We need to be more ready to engage.
They regarded Britain as more liberal, more willing to countenance an avant-garde.
Officials from France and the European Union, however, would be more likely to countenance his candidacy, diplomats here said.
This week of all weeks, post Glastonbury, the prospect of the station's demise seems more impossible to countenance than ever.
