Mike Crowley reads Iran's response to President Obama's message and finds it defiant, observing that "the Iranians are again asking the U.S. to apologize for various historical offenses, including our support for a 1953 coup, backing Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war, and the accidental shoot-down of an Iranian passenger jet in 1988." Mike also notes that Madeline Albright gave a speech in 2000 where she implicitly apologizes for two of those things. On the other hand, apologies phrased like this -- "it is easy to see now why many Iranians continue to resent this intervention by America in their internal affairs" -- don't always work. See how well the old "I'm sorry you're mad at me" tack works in your personal life.
In any case, Mike is dubious, reasonably enough, that actually responding to Iran's request for these rhetorical concessions would have any success, wondering if "maybe this is just one more Iranian stalling tactic."
But this kind of stalling tactic only works for the Iranians if the Obama administration actually stalls; if he calls the Iranian bluff and offers a blunt apology, the worst that can happen is that Iran hawks are proven correct in their assumption that Iran is an intractable and untrustworthy enemey -- ironically, a proper benefit for those most likely to argue against offering the statement. I'm not sure what the U.S. has to lose by going out and saying explicitly that those three things were mistakes, and include the word "apology." One imagines the nationalistic right will freak out about appeasement and showing weakness, but does admitting past mistakes make our military any less powerful or our economy, such as it is, any less important on the world stage? It's clear that Obama's strategy is about reaching out to the Iranian people and convincing them of the U.S.' benign intention. If he offers such an act of contrition and we are still rebuffed by Iran, then policy-makers can adapt appropriately. I'm sure readers are familiar with that saying about assumptions.
-- Tim Fernholz
