Roger Cohen wrote a very interesting and surprising commentary on who wants to see an improvement in Iranian-American relations. See "Let the Usurpers Writhe", New York Times 2009-07-01. Apparently, those currently in government need an improvement in relations, but they don't want to see the opposition get credit for the improvement.
Cohen would very much like to see an improvement, but he believes that best way to bring down Ahmadinejad is for Obama to keep his distance.
My own view is that those who call for Obama to be more forceful are overly optimistic about U.S. power, military or diplomatic. Somehow they think when the so-called leader of the free world speaks, the whole world will jump. They neglect the long history of the U.S. telling some country to do this or that, and the U.S. gets just the opposite. The rulers, legitimate or otherwise, become more popular by their resistance to U.S. pressure.
