Obama: Iran is a tiny threat..."not serious"

The problem is that to most simple folks, saying that you want to "talk" with your adversary sounds completely reasonable. To be horrified by such an idea as it relates to Iran, one has to have a working knowledge of history and strong grasp of the mentality of radical Islam. Most Americans do not have such a grasp and Obama knows it... so he creates ridicules parallels to the Soviet Empire, where the threat was symmetrical, mutually assured destruction (MAD) was a credible doctrine, and the idea of the Soviets passing on nuclear weapons to terrorists was extremely minimal. In this case the threat is asymmetrical, MAD is not a credible deterrence, and the possibility of passing on nuclear weapons to shady third party proxies is not only a possibility but a likelihood. All of that does not even include Iran's public threats to destroy Israel, its geographic chock hold on the worlds most important oil shipping lane (the straits of Hormuz) and its religious desire to make Shia Islam the dominant power in the region.

In many ways it is a greater threat than the Soviet Empire. Obama's ignorance is stunning but the simplicity of his message works in his favor.