Source: AIPAC Policy Conference

The first year of the Obama administration’s foreign policy was largely characterized by an effort to engage with Iran and other adversarial states. This diplomatic strategy, “in the administration's view,” was aimed at “repairing relations with people who have been adversaries, competitors, challengers of the United States,” notes Robert Kagan. Yet an unintended outcome of this strategy has been lost opportunities for “reassuring allies.” Furthermore, the Obama administration missed an opportunity to further destabilize the Iranian regime following the June 12 presidential elections in Iran. Kagan asserts that “the administration had an opportunity then to: A, put itself clearly on the side of people demanding freedom in Iran; B, to take steps that would, in fact, increase the insecurity of the regime, which might, then, have played back in to the nuclear negotiations.”