[alexamenos]

but Obama isn't doing a mea culpa, he's doing a "We screwed you and because of this you hate us but if you could just get past your hatred then everything would be ok." It's a non-pology.

A bonafide mea culpa would be something like, "I recognize that the United States actively thwarted democracy in Iran for generations. I further recognize that we are openly hostile to you and that we have spent the last several years building numerous military bases in a neighboring country, close enough that we might launch a military attack upon you within hours. Given that you pose no plausible threat to the security of the United States, that we currently pose a very real threat to your national security and furthermore that we have in the past overthrown your democratically elected government in favor of single dictator, far be it from us to lecture you as if we own the moral high ground."

I'm not saying that Obama should do one thing or the other, just saying that if I were Iranian, what he is saying would make me more hostile to the US, not less.