Ahmadinejad can't stop talking about George Bush

I'm sure a lot of people have seen this article here or others like it on Ahmadinejad's speech today demanding that President Obama first apologize for the United States under George Bush. I'm not expert on Iranian internal politics but this type of behavior is obvious in any country: a leader that has had a drum to beat on for so long that even once it's taken away the motion still remains the same. At the same time the problems within Iran are economic: inflation and a sudden drop in oil prices, and here the president is going on about George Bush. I'm still learning Persian so I can't analyze what he actually said accurately, but this article has nine mentions of the word Bush.

It looks like the situation is ripe for a new president: bad economy - check, different world situation than when first elected - check, talking about non-pocketbook issues that average people don't care about - check.

Also, two notes about apologies:

1) Barack Obama's election itself was a refutation of George Bush's policies, and that alone is much more substantial than any apology would be. Plus:
2) Apologies don't happen between nations until they have achieved a certain level of amenity. I could see in the far future where the US and Iran are best of friends a series of apologies to one another - sorry about shooting your plane down, sorry about kidnapping your embassy staff, sorry about keeping ships so close to your country all the time then, sorry about supplying weapons to your enemies, etc. etc. But you never *begin* basic relationships with an apology. It just doesn't happen that way.



On the other hand, lest you think President Obama's more subtle approach to international diplomacy will fail to produce results, here's an article from today proving that wrong: Russia is scrapping the plan to deploy nuclear-capable missiles in Kalingrad while the Obama administration is reconsidering (that probably means scrapping) the deployment of missile interceptors and radar bases in Poland and the Czech Republic. Every nation requires a different approach.