President Obama’s recent letter to Ayatollah Khameini, the forth such personal appeal to Iran’s Supreme Leader, can serve only to undermine efforts at preventing Iran from getting nuclear weapons. Suzanne Maloney writes:
[I]t is precisely at the tactical level that an Obama letter to Khamenei at this juncture appears so spectacularly ill-conceived. First of all, it poses no realistic possibility of advancing progress in the nuclear talks or any other aspect of U.S.-Iranian relations. After all, only the most naive and uninformed observer of Iran would believe that a personal appeal from Obama would sway the Supreme Leader in a positive fashion.
Khamenei’s mistrust and antipathy toward Washington has been a consistent feature of his public rhetoric through the 35-year history of the Islamic Republic. He has described Washington with every possible invective; he indulges in Holocaust denial and 9/11 conspiracies; and he routinely insists that the United States is bent on regime change in Iran and perpetuating the nuclear crisis. These views are not opportunistic or transient. Anti-Americanism is Khamenei’s bedrock, ingrained in his worldview, and as such it is not susceptible to blandishments—particularly not from the very object of his loathing.
Read more on Brookings: http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/iran-at-saban/posts/2014/11/06-letter-khamenei-ayatollah-iran-obama-nuclear-isis