The former Republican administration of President Bush put previously some conditions, particularly the suspension of uranium enrichment, for starting a direct dialogue with Iran. Meanwhile, the Democratic opposition was calling for an immediate and unconditioned direct dialogue with Iran. Then, I responded to this approach of the Democrats by saying that, as usual, Democrats in the U.S. just keep showing that they misunderstand the Middle East and the Middle East’s regimes and the related realities, particularly the totalitarian regimes like the Iranian theocratic regime and its ally the Baath Syrian regime.

This reality is mainly extracted from the experience of the two Clinton administrations in the Middle East. Our experience with those U.S. policies and the U.S. comprehensive approach to the Middle East was almost disastrous, as those two Democratic administrations came in a very important and decisive time for the region, following the end of the Cold War and the dismantling of the totalitarianism’s prime sponsor, the Soviet Union.

In this regard, and for example, those administrations inherited a world free from the Soviet Union and the Eastern totalitarian camp, which included or associated some key parts of the mainly totalitarian or authoritarian Middle East, and left a surviving and even stronger and more stable authoritarianism and totalitarianism in the Middle East that we still suffer until now.

The Democratic presidential campaign previously adopted the aforementioned approach of contacting Iran and the unconditioned dialogue with the Iranian regime. Of course, all the totalitarian and authoritarian regimes in the region, and in the world, along with dictators and tyrants including the Iranian and the Baath regimes celebrated the Democratic campaign and its win in the U.S. elections, after they were almost campaigning for it and its promised “change.”

Now, and soon after he has taken office, the Democratic president of the U.S. is apparently changing the previous policy of the former administration in terms of the Middle East in general and Iran in particular. In this regard, in his first TV interview as a president, which was with an Arab channel, the U.S. Democratic president extended his hand to Iran inviting the Iranian regime to the direct dialogue with his administration.

The Iranian response came very soon by the Iranian president, who demanded that the U.S. apologize for its “crimes” throughout the world among other Iranian conditions to accept the U.S. invitation of dialogue.

The Iranian response has political significance and objectives of course, but apart from those, it was really humiliating for the U.S. and its Democratic president and party. However, the most important result, in this regard, is that this incident further proves our perception of the U.S. Democrats and their Middle East policies that they neither understand nor cope with the Middle East and its realities.

In this regard, we do hope that this Democratic administration does not leave a worst totalitarian, authoritarian and extremist Middle East.