But let us remember the words that were written by the poet Saadi, so many years ago: “The children of Adam are limbs to each other, having been created of one essence.”

The mullahs are laughing today, knowing that Barack Obama will do nothing to stop them from gaining the ultimate weapon. This isn’t just ill-advised, it’s disastrous. Barack Obama just hung a huge “Kick Me” sign on America’s back.

I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearth-stone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

Conciliatory words are not kick-me signs. At any rate, they don’t automatically have to amount to that. Obama has tried to model himself on Lincoln. Them’s big shoes to fill, and he can’t do it right. Nobody on today’s political horizon could, actually. But in trying, he may do a better job than he would if he did his own modest personal best.

Iran would do well to study these two speeches, and ponder the way the U.S. proceeded after hanging out that earlier kick me sign.