re: #149 BlueCanuck

Hmmm, I seem to recall Iranian mullahs decry the “Great Satan” many times over the years. During Regans era, Bush 1, Clinton…

/yeah taming down the rhetoric was what made decide to go for the coup.

Obviously the Iranian regime was never a wholesale supporter of the U.S from the time the mullahs took power. The history of our involvement with their internal political affairs is pretty self-explanatory. But prior to Ahmadinejad, the anti-Western rhetoric was much milder. Ahmadinejad was elected almost purely on a populist, anti-western platform. And once elected he used every opportunity to decry the U.S. and Israel, using as much inflammatory language as possible to draw purposeful international press attention.

And Bush played right into his hands by returning the favor, and labeling the Iranians as the “axis of evil.” Hardliners cannot exist in a vacuum, they need a counterpart to continue sparring with. When Obama said that we have no qualms with the Iranian people, it made Ahmadinejad look stupid. Without someone to return his own rhetoric back, Ahmadinejad simply looked angry and aggrieved for no reason.