COMMENTARY | President Barack Obama's overtures of peace with Iran have changed significantly in the past three years. He has gone from a president willing to offer a new beginning to the Islamic republic to a president on the verge of a military confrontation the likes of which Iran cannot possibly imagine.
Shortly after taking office in 2009, Reuters reported Obama wrote a letter to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei offering a new beginning between the U.S. and his country, and offered to set aside 30 years of hostile feelings. That offer fell upon deaf ears, and Khamenei's reply was not encouraging. Regardless, Obama wrote a second letter and received a similar reply.
It's just further proof Iran does not want to be in the community of nations. It enjoys a status of a pariah nation -- fully intent on pursuing its own policies without regard for how the rest of the world feels. More importantly, Iran cannot afford to befriend "The Great Satan" -- less it lose a powerful propaganda tool.
Obama has taken a lot of criticism from opponents over his gesture and, it probably was for naught, but at least he tried. That's a lot more than his predecessors can claim.
There is no reason to respect anything the government of Iran does. It has proven time and again that there can be no trust and no dialogue -- most recently when President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's government allowed (or encouraged) the ransacking of the British embassy in Tehran. That's not what a responsible modern government does, yet it's the only way Iran seems to know how to express itself.
Tehran's latest gamble might be one that just goes too far. Its repeated threat to close the Strait of Hormuz has not fallen on deaf ears. With two U.S. naval aircraft carriers within striking distance, plus their support vessels and an assortment of warships from allied countries closing in, Iran might have found a bluff too expensive to carry out.
There is little doubt the U.S. would respond if the Strait is threatened, and Iran can be confident such a response would go far beyond sinking a few motor boats that Reuters reported are chasing American ships. Maybe now would be a good time for Khamenei to write a letter.
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