Just testing the waters, checking to see how low The One will stoop to fulfill his campaign promise of getting to the negotiating table with Iran, where absolutely nothing will be resolved. Doubtless there’ll be some support for this on the American left, too. If a groveling apology to a terrorist Holocaust denier who spent the last six years funneling weapons to Iraqis to kill Americans furthers the cause of “dialogue,” why not suck it up?

My Obamaspeak is rusty, incidentally. Would this constitute a precondition, or merely a “preparation”?

“You were standing against the Iranian people in the past 60 years,” Mr Ahmadinejad said during an address in the western region of Khermenshah that was broadcast by state television.

“Those who speak of change must apologise to the Iranian people and try to repair their past bad acts and the crimes they committed against Iran.”

As to the troops, he said he expected two kinds of “deep and fundamental” change.

“Meet people, talk to them with respect and put an end to the expansionist policies. If you talk about change it must put an end to the US military presence in the world, withdraw your troops and take them back inside your borders.”

Mr Ahmadinejad said the advocates of change must “stop supporting the Zionists, outlaws and criminals”.

This isn’t the first demand they’ve made of the United States as a prerequisite to diplomacy, but it is the first that might be plausibly satisfied. Exit question one: Will The One bite the bullet on this himself or will it be farmed out to our new secretary of state, who once famously threatened to nuke the country she’ll be apologizing to? Exit question two: Will it be a mutual thing, with both sides owning up to yesteryear’s missteps? I wouldn’t mind an apology from Iran for “death to America” and creating Hezbollah and arming Hamas and trying to wreck Iraq and starting a Middle East arms race and bombing the occasional Jewish community center and…