When candidate Barack Obama was running for president against Hilary Clinton and John McCain, he made a strong case for engagement and dialogue with Iran. However, once he was elected he quickly reverted to the Bush administration policy of confrontation and conflict. He never made an effective public case for engagement; never used the bully pulpit to advocate for a grand bargain with the Islamic Republic. This stance has left him in a deep policy and political hole.
This week a delegation of IAEA officials met with Iranian officials in Tehran in order to discuss renewed 
negotiations concerning Iran’s nuclear program. During the discussion, the IAEA officials requested a visit to the Parchin military base. The Iranians refused to allow the requested visit. The reaction of U.S. and western media and governments to this refusal can be summed up by the statement by White House spokesperson Jay Carney in which he said, "This particular action by Iran suggest that they have not changed their behavior when it comes to abiding by their international obligations.” He expressed regret that the IAEA mission had ended in failure.
Carney neglected to acknowledge that, under its 1974 Safeguards Agreement with the IAEA, Iran is under no obligation to allow inspections of non-nuclear sites such as Parchin. Iran believes that the IAEA has shared confidential information from inspections with the U.S. and Israel and that this information has led to attacks on facilities and assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists. It is not surprising, therefore, that Iran would be very careful about unnecessary sharing of information with the IAEA. The U.S. portrayal of a perfectly rational Iranian position as a “failure to abide by its international obligations” only fans the flames of war, already burning brightly.
It is this kind of fact free reporting and posturing that leads to polling results which show that 60% of Americans favor U.S. military action to prevent an Iranian nuclear weapons program and only 5% would oppose an Israeli attack which would assuredly draw the U.S. into war with Iran. (The complete poll results are here.) I will admit that it is relatively easy to get Americans to support a war, since recent history has shown that they neither have to participate in nor pay for military adventures.
The risk of war in the Persian Gulf has driven oil prices well north of $100 a barrel and gas prices are headed above $4 per gallon. The resulting drag on the still fragile U.S. and global economies will not help Obama’s reelection bid. If Obama wants to get himself out of this policy and political hole, the first step would be to stop digging.
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