Peace in the 21st century using the Friendship Over Time Theory

The article about Obama's olive branch to Iran and how they brushed it off:

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.073ba2ee2f1f00668848a4655420fedc.411&show_article=1

This whole Iran thing is yet another reason why I believe the west needs to pursue a different strategy of achieving peace with the rest of the world. The old strategies really aren't working, yet we keep trying them over and over in hopes that the next time will be better than the last time. Friendship or sanctions can only go so far as a diplomatic strategy towards people who see the United States and the west through a kaleidoscope of images that have a lot of historical baggage attached (like supporting the Shah, overthrowing democratic governments to support dictators who will support the US against the USSR, and other such moves that have damaged the US's reputation with those nations or people). The thing is, and this is what people just don't seem to grasp, is that while the United States HAS matured a lot since those days of the 1950s and 1960s, yes, there is still some work to be done, and no, Iraq didn't help the image any.

But with a new president, part of the problem we have to face is that Obama holding his hand out is still going to be seen as the same arm that connected to Bush, Clinton, Bush Senior, Reagan, Carter, Ford, and Nixon. I personally believe we may have turned a huge corner here, but the rest of the world isn't going to see that until a lot of steps are made to change international perception.

The United States needs to pursue a generational approach to peace-making in the world instead of trying to achieve things overnight. That's been our problem for so long now. We keep trying to get immediate results with other nations when dealing with nations that have been harboring attitudes that have existed over centuries. We've pretty much obtained all of the friendships we're going to get with immediate result seeking strategies. Now, we have to start focusing on long-term peaceful efforts with nations that have no reason to want to be friendly with us. To keep referring to countries as enemies of peace or an axis of evil, is never going to lead to long, sustaining peace with those people. Unfortunately, we don't get immediate results with them, so we automatically declare them as lost causes.

Look at Cuba as an example. There is absolutely no reason the United States should not pursue automatic friendly relations with this country. A tit for tat policy would do everything to produce friendship between the United States and Cuba. They'd be suspicious and act counter to friendship in the beginning, but sustained efforts at actually producing friendship would eventually thaw the hatred that exists between the leaders of these nations. The people don't hate each other. Americans have no hatred for Cubans. And I doubt Cubans hate Americans. However, because one man, Castro, went against the US decades ago, we refuse to have diplomatic relations with this country. And then a whole bunch of political people have made any future attempt at friendship politically impossible. A simple tit for tat strategy would produce immediate friendship that would grow over time. We start by opening up doors to their ambassadors, stating we recognize Cuba and will allow them to trade with our nation on standard international trade agreements. It would start slow, and it would stall several times. But eventually, with sustained policies to make it a positive experience, it would start to escalate towards friendlier relations. All that would have to be eliminated is the hostility talk and the sanctions we keep putting on people we perceive as enemies because we don't know how to deal with people in any way other than black and white terms.

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