Barack Obama released a video message intended for Iranians and their leaders, wishing them a happy Nowruz (Iranian New Year) and stressing all the usual Obamisms about hope, diplomacy, togetherness, and mutual respect. Obama supporters can swoon and Obama detractors can stew, but trying to establish a connection across intense cultural lines is nothing that Obama brought to the presidency. It is perfectly in keeping with George W. Bush’s unstinting effort to appeal to the world’s Muslims at every opportunity.
In early 2002, Bush initiated the first annual Iftar dinner at the White House, to break the Ramadan fast. Fifty ambassadors and clerics from Muslim nations were in attendance when the Crusading Cowboy said, “America is made better by millions of Muslim citizens,” and, “America has close and important relations with many Islamic nations. So it is fitting for America to honor your friendship and the traditions of a great faith by hosting this Iftar at the White House,” and “So tonight we are reminded of God’s greatness and His commandments to live in peace and to help neighbors in need. According to Muslim teachings, God first revealed His word in the holy Qur’an to the Prophet Muhammad during the month of Ramadan. That word has guided billions of believers across the centuries, and those believers built a culture of learning and literature and science.”
In ways both formal and informal, the last president reiterated his belief in the respectability and wonder of Islam too many times to count. For all the talk of Obama-Clinton envoy diplomacy, Bush, the stubborn unilateralist, put together the first U.S. envoy to deal directly with the Organization of the Islamic Conference, “to listen and to learn from representatives from Muslim states.”
Instead of extending an open hand for Iranian leaders to chop off, George W. Bush appealed directly to Iran’s pro-democracy movement. “The Iranian government must listen to the voices of those who long for freedom,” he said in a 2004 speech, adding, “We stand strongly with those who demand freedom.”
There are two main differences between Bush’s Muslim outreach and Obama’s ambidirectional variety. First, as a man in whose life faith plays a central role, Bush could simply appeal to Muslims as members of an Abrahamic religion. He didn’t gild the lily, as Obama does, by condescending to one “great culture” after another, and citing the universal peace dreams of tyrants. Second, Bush never thought embracing the world’s peaceful Muslims was a substitute for threatening, or using, force against the world’s less peaceful Muslims. He knew that saying nice things was less important than doing necessary things. When it comes to Iran, there’s no indication that Obama sees a difference between the two.
