For 8 years, Bush-Cheney practiced what I call "belligerent Ostrichism" toward Iran. They refused to talk to Tehran. They wanted to ratchet up sanctions on it. Bush sent 2 aircraft carriers to the Gulf to menace Iran. Bush's spokesmen professed themselves afraid of Iran's unarmed little speedboats in the Gulf. Aside from issuing threats to attack and destroy Iran the way they did Iraq, Bush-Cheney had nothing else to say on the matter. During the 8 years, Iran went from being able to enrich to .2% to being able to enrich to 3.8%, and increased its stock of centrifuges significantly. Bush-Cheney gesticulated and grimaced and fainted away at the horror of it all, but they accomplished diddly-squat.
Barack Obama pwned Bush-Cheney in one day, and got more concessions from Iran in 7 1/2 hours than the former administration got in 8 years of saber-rattling.
Part of Bush's problem was neocon foreign policy delusions. They seemed to feel that being allowed to speak with someone from the US was a tremendous reward and demanded that countries do something first to earn this great honor. Not surprisingly, other countries didn't see things quite the same way, rendering the neocon negotiating strategy equal to doing nothing. This was the heart of the whole "sitting down without preconditions" thing that gave John McCain the vapors during the '08 election campaign.
In the end, diplomacy works pretty much the way it always has -- a little give, a little take. The neocon idea of always doing everything differently, because everyone in the history of mankind was doing everything wrong, turned out to be as stupid and ineffective as you would've predicted.
