President Barack Obama reached out to Iran on Friday -- the start of the Iranian New Year -- in a video message offering "the promise of a new beginning" that is "grounded in mutual respect."
The message is a dramatic shift in tone from that of the Bush administration, which included Iran, along with North Korea and Iraq, in an "axis of evil." It also echoes Obama's inaugural speech, in which he said to the Muslim world, "we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect."
It might just work, too:
Obama's overture comes ahead of Iran's national elections in June. Ahmadinejad faces a tough campaign against reformists, who favor better ties with the West and the United States.
The reformists, led by former Prime Minister Mir Hossein Mousavi, may try to use promises to thaw the nearly 30-year diplomatic freeze to gain votes. In contrast, conservatives may get caught between maintaining their tough position or offering some opening for dialogue with Washington.
At the least, Obama's overtures put pressure on hard-liners to justify their anti-American stance to Iranians, said Karim Sadjadpour, an Iran expert at the Washington-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Previously, the hard-liners have been able to blame the impasse on Bush, who was widely unpopular in Iran.
"Rather than tip the scales in favor of (hard-line) radicals, as the Bush administration did, I think Obama's efforts at diplomacy will undermine them and puncture their narrative of a hostile U.S. government bent on oppressing Iran," Sadjadpour said.
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