“Mottaki said Washington must change Bush administration policies that he described as ‘based on warmongering, occupation, bullying and unfair relations.'” Iran, you see, need do nothing to improve relations with the United States. It is playing the victim, and demanding adjustments from Washington — and the President is likely to play into the mullahs’ hands in this.
“Iran: Obama must seek ‘new’ Mideast foreign policy,” by Lee Keath for Associated Press, January 21 (thanks to all who sent this in):
CAIRO, Egypt — Iran said Wednesday it is “ready for new approaches” from President Barack Obama as, across the Islamic world, countries cautiously welcomed his promise of mutual respect between the U.S. and Muslims.
Despite the reception, it remained clear that Iran and postwar Gaza will pose early tests of Obama’s inauguration speech offer to the Muslim world to “extend a hand if you are willing to unclench your fist.” […]
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki struck a moderate tone soon after Obama’s inaugural address, telling the country’s state-run English language network, Press TV, “We are ready for new approaches by the United States.”
Obama has not been specific on what incentives Washington might offer to end the deadlock between the two countries. Mottaki said Tehran was waiting for “practical policies” from the Obama administration before making any specific judgments.
In what may have been a suggestion for improving relations, Mottaki said that if Washington formally requests to open a diplomatic office in Tehran, Iran would study the idea. The U.S. has not had any diplomatic mission in Iran since the seizure of the American Embassy and hostage crisis during Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Mottaki said Washington must change Bush administration policies that he described as “based on warmongering, occupation, bullying and unfair relations.”
“A new Middle East is in the making. The new generation in this region seeks justice and rejects domination,” Mottaki said, according to the state news agency IRNA. […]
Jihadists were thrilled by the Inaugural Address:
“We do welcome these comments. We can also anticipate good hope provided Obama really takes a new course of action toward injustices the Muslim world is facing at this moment,” Qazi Hussain Ahmed, the head of Jamaat-e-Islami, a major hard-line Islamist party in Pakistan, told The Associated Press by phone.
Many were struck simply by Obama’s tone.
“This man is not going to divide the world into good and evil, he won’t describe Muslims as terrorists and he won’t turn America into a global gangster,” said Gamal Wafa, an Egyptian engineer who watched Obama speech on Al-Jazeera TV.
No matter what Muslims do in the name of Islam, Islam and terrorism have nothing to do with one another. Get that into your head — or else.