

Video undermines Iranian media's claim that Obama is just a continuation of Bush

In his Nowruz message to Iran, President Barack Obama is using the most effective diplomatic tool at his disposal - his new face.

The line put out by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the rightwing Iranian press is that Obama is just a continuation of Bush by other means – American imperialist business as usual. But by sending out a video on satellite television and online, with a direct spoken message, Obama undermines that claim and drains some of the fuel from Ahmadinejad's anger-driven political machine.

The dilemma that faced Obama and his advisers was how to extend a hand to Iran without giving a lift to Ahmadinejad's campaign for re-election in June. They did not want him to be able to claim that his hostile stance to the west had made the US and its allies softer and more compliant. They needed to show that the Iranian president's policies and personality were exacting a cost to Iran, but that it was an unnecessary cost.

The reference to "threats" is instrumental. Obama is drawing attention to the boorish side of Ahmadinejad, the menacing tone towards Israel and questioning of the Holocaust, which makes many of his fellow Iranians cringe. It serves also as a sly means for Obama to disown his predecessor's style.

The 600-word address is perhaps most noticeable for the words left out. For once there is no mention of Iran's nuclear programme – something most Iranians support in principle but which is the focus of the standoff with the west. To have rehearsed those arguments would have signalled business as usual, the same old impasse, and detracted from the "new beginning" theme. Make no mistake, all of that is still on the table, but Obama is reasoning that on first introductions, it pays to stick to what you have in common.

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