"Clenched Fist" Diplomacy

Obama: "Unclench your fist so we can shake hands." Iran: "So you admit you're wrong."

To Obama, it's all about theater. But in the international arena, theater translates into justification. The breakdown is this: O was elected on a retroactive plank of "I never would have attacked Iraq. Bush didn't have the evidence to justify what he told the world so he was wrong to attack." Iran studies our media (who doesn't? people in caves know who Monica Lewinsky was within days of that story). They know that O needs reasons. This is the game they want to play. Because reasons can be argued with, and the one with the best reasons will look like the one who has moral authority, which they believe they have. Back to the media- Our faults are out there for all the world to see. Iran's are implicit, but not advertised- they don't admit them. So it's easy for them to point to this or that individual American action of the past to paint us as wrong and them as victims. Now, the way to fight this is to do what everyone with a brain loved Ronald Reagan for: Being able to articulate American values in such a way as to make them obvious and unapologetic. Good rhetoric goes a long way. BUT (here's why I'm worried), OBAMA doesn't talk pro-American rhetoric too good. When he tries to explain why he loves this country, it comes out stilted and self-serving. It was only when he criticized Bush that he was eloquent (even though wrong). I'm going to point to my own posts from the election- this is what I worried about then, and still do. He wants to talk to our enemies, but to them, talk is cheap. To us, talk should be cheap, but it's not. Talk got Obama elected. Iran would have worried about McCain. They don't have any worries about Obama...