Either Geoff is being naive or disingenuous. Probably a mix of both. We are approaching the 10th anniversary of the time when IANA became a political football that was de facto taken over by the US government, a time when Jon Postel threatened with jail if he did anything without the permission of the USG. To say that IANA should simply sign the root as a technical function and that there are no political or governance issues is like saying that IANA shold decide which TLDs exist, as it did back in the "good old days." Appeals to the purely "technical" nature of the function simply don't wash anymore. It isn't us who politicized this, folks. It happened a decade ago, and the stakes have only gotten bigger and hence the issues even more political. The only real way to "de-politicize" the function is to reach agreement on governance arrangements that share power and avoid any possibility of abuse by nation-states, ANY nation-state.