Is Obama's Iran policy doomed?

By Dilip Hiro

While the tone of the Barack Obama administration is different from that of its predecessor, and some of its foreign policies diverge from those of George W Bush, both administrations subscribe at their core to the same doctrine: whatever the White House perceives as a threat - whether it be Iran, North Korea, or the proliferation of long-range missiles - must be viewed as such by Moscow and Beijing.

In addition, by the evidence available, Obama has not drawn the right conclusion from his predecessor's failed Iran policy. A paradigm of sticks-and-carrots simply is not going to work in the case of the Islamic Republic.