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U.S. Still Waiting for Mullahs to Unclench Their Fists
[U.S. News] Mortimer Zuckerman - The hope was that President Obama could be a bridge to the Arab and Muslim world. The U.S., abandoning the "axis of evil" rhetoric, would extend a hand of goodwill, and the ideologues and dictators would be induced to unclench their fists. Obama did his bit to press the reset button with grace and eloquence. He apologized for America and its past conduct in the region; he avowed respect for the Iranian government; he was the most restrained of the Western leaders when the ayatollahs violently suppressed protests by millions of Iranians over a flawed election. And what was Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's response? Ridicule in sermons and speeches and the assertion that Obama's agents had been behind the protests. Raising the level of insult, President Ahmadinejad demanded that Obama apologize for his later, sharper critique. We are still waiting for Iran to unclench its fists. The upheaval in Iran has greatly diminished the chances that the Iranian leadership will bend on the issues that count for us, especially the pursuit of nuclear weapons. If anything, the uprising has intensified a shift to an ideological military dictatorship, committed to its version of revolutionary Islam that neither needs nor wants an accommodation with the West.