It seems there were some folks left off the distribution list when they sent that memo detailing how the world loves America again now that Barack Obama has been elevated to POTUS. Obama effigies are making appearances at protests across the Middle East and they're not being shown the respect one might expect for a Lightworker. The latest incarnation is from soon-to-be-diplomatically-engaged Iran:

Hardline demonstrators burn posters of U.S. President-elect Barack Obama, during a demonstration in support of the people of Gaza, in front of the Swiss Embassy in Tehran January 13, 2009.

Here's the rub - Iran is not at all like the US. Protesters upset over the Gaza offensive over here are free to burn things and extol the need for larger ovens without being tossed in a political prison. Protesters in Iran are not so lucky. If their message doesn't conform to the mullahs' sensibilities they can be disappeared. Anti-US (and Israel) protests in Iran may not (or may) have been explicitly organized by the mullahs, they regardless get the mullahs' seal of approval.

In other words, the new president of the Great Satan is just the next president of the Great Satan.

No words can change the attitudes of Iran's leaders towards the US. We cannot fool ourselves into believing a change in who occupies the Oval Office will foment a groundswell of goodwill across the Middle East. Barack Obama will be reviled just like George W. Bush and Bill Clinton before him. Failing to rein in Iran has been America's greatest foreign policy failure over the past three decades. Whether or not Iran achieves their goal of a nuclear weapon is the gravest challenge facing the Middle East - and they won't be deterred through mere force of personality. The well is already poisoned.