Obama To The Mullahs: "We Have So Much In Common, Let's Be Friends"

Jihad Watch, a conservative website, slams President Barack Obama's video message to Iran on the occasion of the Persian New Year. It accuses the liberal Democrat of appeasement: "Here, as always, the President assumes that Iran wants to take its 'rightful place in the community of nations,' but the poor dears just can't quite figure out how to go about it. The possibility that perhaps they would prefer to hasten the coming of the Mahdi and destroy the Zionist entity, even if doing so brings them criticism from the UN, doesn't seem to have entered his calculations. Of course, if this had occurred to him, he probably wouldn't have sent any message to Iran at all, and this one will bring him more love from the Western intelligentsia, even though it won't do a thing to smooth over matters with Iran itself."



The Purple Center, a moderate blog, has raised eyebrows: "Color me skeptical about whether this cuts any ice with the ayatollahs and their ruthless henchmen who run Iran. There is something to be said by using the Internet and rebroadcast by Gulf region TV stations to reach over the heads of the ayatollahs to the people of Iran. There is an intermittent reform impulse that we see occasionally in student demonstrations and the like....I suspect Obama's principal motive to is be able to say to the European and Arab states, 'Look, I've tried then olive branch with these folks, so don't blame me if the whole thing goes south.' We will see."

However, Malou Innocent over at the libertarian Cato Institute's blog praises the move as an attempt to derail the re-election of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad: "In response to those (usually neoconservatives) who fear Israel will be wiped off the map, [college Justin] Logan argues persuasively that attempting to deduce Iranian intentions from public statements is not helpful in ascertaining whether the clerical regime values self-preservation. Instead, we must evaluate what the regime has done when confronted with overwhelming force. For example, rather than wage the Iran-Iraq War (1980–88) to the bitter end, Supreme Leader Ruhollah Khomeini, one of Iran’s most radical Ayatollahs, saved his country from more suffering by accepting a disadvantageous ceasefire with Saddam Hussein. Overall, the track record of Iranian behavior shows pragmatism and calculating temperament when attempting to advance their interests in the region. As I’ve written here, occasionally the interests of Tehran and Washington have overlapped, most recently when Iran quietly supported America’s effort to oust the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. Thus, it would be prudent for Washington to engage Tehran and allow it to produce uranium and plutonium if the regime agrees to IAEA safeguard regulations in compliance with United Nations resolutions. National self-preservation has figured prominently in modern Iranian diplomacy. President Obama and his subordinates appear to understand that. Hopefully, this new strategy will work."