What Can Obama Do?Six nonmilitary ways the president can influence Iran.

When will we learn that boycotts, sanctions and economic blockades do little more than make a country's citizens more miserable and, as a result, us less liked. If that can even come close to describing the feelings for us in Iran, even among the disaffected youth now active on the streets and boulevards of cities through the country.

Comity and prosperity are the better way to approach realpolitcs. Certainly, our pragmatism should be informed by the corrosive effects that our sanctions have had on Cuba, Burma, Sudan, Somalia, Liberia, Iran and North Korea. If countries can grow a substantial middle class its been argued that's one of the most effective conduits for change. As we are seeing in Iran, the relatively well-off and intelligentsia want more voice, more respect though, perhaps, not quite the violent overthrow of the status quo America would desire.

Let's come up with better, different ways to communicate our disaffection nations that have yet to join the international community as more amenable partners in global affairs. Putting distance between "US" and "THEM", in the case of sanctions, does not make their hearts grow any warmer it only stokes unremitting animosity.

-- boredwell
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