I may be naive, but I see the inherent flaw in his assertions and rhetoric. There is a precondition. Further, President Obama is unwilling to do what it takes to meet without this precondition.
Specifically, the “Ahmadinejads” will not sit down and talk. They do not want to give the American President, the great Satan, the prestige such a meeting would bring to President Obama, at least in fascist circles. Our President has no such reservations about offering the prestige of his office to Ahmadinejad as he believes that only by humbling himself to them will they capitulate. This is the crux of my revelation.

A dear friend of mine, a generally quiet, reserved, patient and tolerant person, posed some passionate questions about the state of science in our country. He is a true scientist in that he realizes that discoveries may or may not fit our hopes and they may or may not survive the test of time. He recently gave me a C. S. Lewis book which I am enjoying greatly. You remember, The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe guy? The point of this is an observation Mr. Lewis made with which I am inclined to agree. Paraphrasing: good and evil are not battling, evil is the perversion of good, not the absence of it, an evil person believes that they are doing good for themselves and for others. In other words, some people do things just because they are the right things to do, but no one does anything because they are committed to doing the wrong thing or the evil thing. Consider those we consider evil, Hitler, Stalin, Mao; they all believed that they were fighters for the good of their people.

Ahmadinejad is doing what he thinks will save the world as a matter of deep religious belief and principle. There is nothing President Obama can eloquently say or offer to divert such motivations. Indeed, I wonder if President Obama holds any such beliefs or principles which he would not consider setting aside as a precondition to talks. I feel confident that there is no American ideal, an offering of which would get Ahmadinejad’s attention, much less his compromise. After all, he wants our lives, and after that, he would be interested in his share of our wealth, our ideals are frivolous to him.

But my theory pertains more to the other players in the region who do not hold such hatred and who do not wish my destruction. For example, the President of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai is being particularly uncooperative in his reaction to American demands to take up American Ideals or face President Obama’s threat to remove American troops. I don’t think that this is so much a reaction to the great Satan as it is a grasp of reality every political creature understands: I will need a loyal base to remain in power. President Obama has made it clear that he expects Karzai to be a part of Obama’s base, not the other way around. The Taliban offers to be more loyal for Karzai’s support.

But why would the local tribes side with a political hack instead of fighting for a free Afghanistan? I think that they view President Obama as untrustworthy and unworthy of allying oneself with. The reason I came to this conclusion lies in the words of Marcus Luttrell in his book, Lone Survivor. He refers to a principle the people of Hindu Kush live by, loosely translated: “Me and my brother against my cousin; me, my brother, and my cousin against the other.” The other being strangers or people from other lands. Many Muslims understand this to mean evil people, some understand this to mean anyone not of their belief.

The people of Hindu Kush do not slight one another as this could lead to an entire tribe coming to bear to right the slight. If the retribution is unwarranted, or even if the slight were understandable, the family of the offending person, and likely his whole tribe, could be called upon to protect him. Wars can result and so they are very careful about accusations. Indeed, when a slight is heard which is not obviously warranted, people are duty bound to take to the streets in mob protest, lest there be any doubt that the slight is true. This explains why less than flattering images of Mohammad in a cartoon brought riots in some of the Muslim world. They were duty bound to leave no doubt where they stand.

If an accusation, of theft for example, is not met with such reaction, one can assume that the theft must have taken place. No admittance will likely come, but the retribution might be allowed, and to protect the tribe, the thief’s hands might be cut off by the offender’s family in order to head off war.

With my limited understanding of this perspective, superior to our own in some respects, I draw the conclusion that President Obama is viewed with little respect in that part of the world. He openly complains about the slights, in his opinion, his country has made against the world, and then expects the Hindu Kush to respect him for it. If one of their own did such a thing, they would exile that man if he were loved, cut out his tongue if he were mediocre, or execute him in heinous ways if this was not his first embarrassment. He acts in such an unacceptable way and we do nothing, no riots, no guns shot into the air, no straw men burned in effigy. They can only be expected to draw one conclusion, that he is lying and we all know it.

The people of that region have held these principles for a hundred times longer than the US has been a country. It is obvious that they respect the barrels of our guns as they do those of their neighbors and as we do theirs, but the ideals of freedom to decide for ourselves if our cousins are guilty and, which friends to defend, are foreign to them (as their customs are to us). The act of complaining about them publicly seems so bizarre that they do not trust President Obama’s campaign speech demanding that we must support the Afghan people and fight the just war.

How must they see us when they have defended their brothers for 4,000 years as a matter of principle and President Obama offers to trade defending them for 18 months in return for adopting his ideals?