Are Obama and Petraeous different from Bush and Tommy Franks?

If Obama and General Petraeous come to a comprehensive understanding about the Middle East and Iran, one would expect them to act differently from Bush and General Tommy Franks.

Bush ignored Iran’s cooperation in ousting the Taliban, and this led to ruining a historical opportunity to control and manage the challenges between the US and Iran. Now the time has come for another president at the White House, proposing Iran’s cooperation in order to solve Afghanistan crisis.

Ousting of the Taliban was a win-win equation for Iran and the US. But Bush applied a three-way strategy for putting the pressure on eastern, southern and western borders of Iran, and this ruined every possibility of managing the crises between Iran and the US. Bush’s actions even brought Iran and the US to the brink of a war.

At the first step, Bush ignored Iran’s actions in tackling Al-Qaeda members and their detention. But instead of sending green lights of cooperation to Iran, Bush put Iran’s name in the so-called Axis of Evil. It left Iran disgusted and shocked and unconfident of the US.

On the second step, Bush transformed the Persian Gulf to the harbor of several cruisers, destroyers, submarines and aircraft carriers. But the Persian Gulf has always been the center of Iran’s national security and the main port for Iran’s export and import. So Bush’s actions were interpreted as a real maneuver to challenge Iran, not Iraq.

On the third step, Bush did not deem thousands of military troops on Iran’s eastern border, and several ships on Iran’s southern fronts as enough, and stationed 150 thousand other troops on Iran’s western fronts. His rhetoric was always one of accusing and threatening Iran. Such policy stopped only when the US needed Iran’s cooperation for bringing security to Iraq.

The outcome of Bush’s policies was Iran’s unconfident view towards Washington. At the same time, Bush was not successful in cutting off Iran’s influence in regional post-Saddam and post-Taliban equations. In such a way, the hostility of the two countries and Iran’s role and influence increased, which was not Bush’s objective.

Now Bush is leaving the White House and Obama is entering it, and this may be another challenge for Iran and the US.  The first step taken by the US is very important, but Obama should not expect Iran to repeat his experience of tackling the Taliban and becoming a member of the Axis of Evil! Iran would find it hard to believe that the "Change" Obama is talking about, would soon be apparent in US military policies. There are still 200 thousand American troops on eastern, southern and western borders of Iran and the Americans are making accusations against Iran on a daily basis. At the same time, they have breached Syria’s sovereignty and it seems that there would no longer be guarantees for preventing the Bush-like adventures against Iran.

The Americans have voted the slogan of "Change". So repeating Bush’s actions seems less probable during Obama’s presidency. Anyhow, the Iranians expect not a change slogan, but a real change of policies.