With Bush no longer in the White House...

By Cernig

When Bush is no longer in the White House, Iran's hardliners have no option but to evoke his ghost in trying to keep their own side of the mutually back-scratching fearmongering going.

US President Barack Obama's offer to talk to Iran shows that America's policy of "domination" has failed, the government spokesman said on Saturday.

"This request means Western ideology has become passive, that capitalist thought and the system of domination have failed," Gholam Hossein Elham was quoted as saying by the Mehr news agency.

"Negotiation is secondary, the main issue is that there is no way but for (the United States) to change," he added.

No, the main issue is that change in America will help foster change in Iran, and conservatives (from both sides) know it. Bush's saber-rattling has been Ahmadinejhad's greatest asset but those days are now over.