One of the biggest foreign policy challenges today, as many of you know, is dealing with the country of Iran. Over the past few decades, there's been hostile rhetoric both ways, and not so much in the way of formal diplomacy.
One of the controversial pledges that Barack Obama ran on was to try and open a dialogue with this country, using diplomacy, rather than saber-rattling and empty threats at a time when we need more stability in the Middle East and have stretched our armed forces to the breaking point in Iraq and Afghanistan.
This is something that both Hillary Clinton and John McCain called him out for. And when he went on tape to send a video message to the Iranian people on Nowruz, it had many wingnuts in a tizzy: apparently they liked the strategy of, well, not really doing anything constructive but using inflamed rhetoric to appear tough.
But it seems today that Obama's strategy may be working.
Buried on Page A13 of today's New York Times was a story (free registration required) revealing that Iran's President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is willing to discuss with the US disputes over its nuclear program.
Mr. Ahmadinejad said during a speech in the southeastern city of Kerman that Iran was still in the process of preparing the new package and that it would be presented when it was ready, IRNA reported. He also said that Iran was willing to hold talks with the United States as long as they were based on "respect."
"They have said they want to resolve issues through diplomatic channels, and we say that this is excellent," he was quoted as saying. "Our people favor logic, dialogue and constructive cooperation based on respect, justice and rights of nations."
Now, I'm not saying that our relationship with Iran is anything close to normalized or that they are no longer a potential force for instability in the region, but I am saying that putting in a good faith effort to talk to Iran has the potential for successes once thought out of reach.
In fact, one of our greatest potentials for positive results when dealing with Iran is to show respect for its people. Much of its population, particularly younger members, want better relations with the Western world and don't want to be isolated and ostracized. By shrewdly acknowledging the people of Iran and Persian culture in his video, President Obama is betting that internal political pressures in Iran will urge its leaders to try a good-faith attempt at diplomacy. After all, I probably wouldn't care to establish good relations with a country that called my own part of an "axis of evil." And so President Obama has acted on the belief that showing the Iranian people some respect will have much more positive results. We have some evidence that that may be what's happening.
Mr. Ahmadinejad warned Wednesday that Washington should adopt a respectful tone toward Iran. "The Iranian nation might forget the past and start a new era," he said, in a reference to Iran’s accusations that the United States has meddled in its affairs in the past.
"But their response would be like the one given to Mr. Bush if anyone tries to speak to them from a position of arrogance," he added. (Emphasis added)
To me, that's a pretty clear repudiation of George W. Bush's "strategy" with Iran. By trying to put on the tough guy act with no credible threat to back up that bluster, Bush allowed Iranian leadership to maintain a hard line and gave them pretty much free reign to do what they wanted.
President Obama is wisely considering international relations in a realistic manner instead of pretending that the world is an action movie.
And that strategy seems to be working.
Just in case you missed it, here's President Obama's address to the Iranian people from last month.