Sifting Through Implications of the Rouhani Victory
Hassan Rouhani, the winner of last Friday’s presidential election in Iran, ran on a platform of ‘hope and prudence’ appealing to both traditional conservatives and reform-minded voters. He surprised observers in Iran and the West by winning in the first round with over 50% of the vote in a pool of six candidates. While it is too early to tell what this victory means for the future of Iran and its relations with the West, the Iranian populace overwhelmingly chose the candidate most closely aligned with the reformers and moderates. While expectations should be tempered, Rouhani’s first conciliatory remarks today underscore the opportunity to build a diplomatic off-ramp from the nuclear standoff.
What we do know: Rouhani takes first round victory with backing of reformers, calls for an end to extremism, better relations with the West. An establishment figure who criticized recent policies: “While no reformer himself, Rohani gained the backing of the politically sidelined but still popular leaders of the reform movement. His call for an end to an ‘era of extremism’ won over many voters tired of the economic crises and crackdowns on free speech that marked Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presidency,” reports Reuters. CNN further explains, “Rouhani spoke of reforms without threatening Iran’s supreme leader or its institutions, of which he is a product. The former national security council chief promised an environment with greater personal freedoms and even indicated he would free political prisoners and jailed journalists. In his campaigning, Rouhani also pledged to improve the economy and unemployment, and as a former nuclear negotiator, he said he would reduce the high tension between Iran and the outside world by addressing sanctions related to Iran’s nuclear program.”
The public voted enthusiastically: “Iranian officials reported a high turnout, with nearly 73% of some 50 million registered voters — men and women, young and old — turning out… The lines extended into the streets at times Friday, as voters waited to pick their choice to succeed two-term President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the country’s 11th presidential election.” [CNN, 6/15/13. Reuters, 6/16/13]
Experts express cautious optimism about Iran’s relations with the West. Karim Sadjadpour of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace: “at least domestically I think many moderates in Iran are breathing a sigh of relief. And with regards to foreign policy, instead of having a president like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who denies the Holocaust and is belligerent towards Israel, Rowhani is much more sophisticated. He studied in Scotland, he speaks English, he’s not known as kind of a visceral anti-American ideologue. So I think this is a pretty significant occurrence. The supreme leader will continue to likely have the last word on matters of major import like relations with the United States and the nuclear issue, but I think is something that we should take very seriously. It was a very unexpected occurrence.”
Former National Intelligence Officer for the Middle East Paul Pillar adds, “Rouhani’s win brings to Iran’s presidency the candidate who was least associated with attributes of the Iranian regime that the West finds most offensive. While one must always be careful in affixing labels to individual leaders and factions in Iranian politics, the pre-election characterization of Rouhani as the most moderate of the six candidates remaining in the race until election day is accurate. The election result also is a vote in favor of flexibility and going the extra mile to reach agreement in the nuclear negotiations. In this regard one of the significant aspects of the result is not only how well Rouhani did but also how bad the result was for one of the other candidates, Saeed Jalili, the current nuclear negotiator. Conduct of the negotiations was an issue in the campaign. Yet another candidate, former foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayati (who possibly could become foreign minister again under Rouhani) pointedly criticized Jalili in one of the candidates’ debates for apparently expecting too much from the other side while offering little in return. Jalili, who before the election had been dubbed the supreme leader’s man and was considered by some the favorite, finished a far-behind third place, with less than a quarter as many votes as Rouhani.” [Karim Sadjadpour,6/15/13. Paul Pillar, 6/16/13]
On nuclear question, an opportunity for diplomacy. With the new political developments in Iran, “President Obama’s top foreign policy aides said Sunday that they planned to press Iran’s newly elected president to resume the negotiations over is country’s nuclear program that derailed in the spring,” according to the New York Times’s David Sanger. Rouhani went out of his way to stress the changed tone in his post-election remarks, omitting hostile references to Israel and stating, “We don’t want further tension [with the United States]… Both nations need to think more about the future and try to sit down and find solutions to past issues and rectify things.”
Pillar further explains, “There clearly is an opportunity for diplomatic progress. More to the point, there is a challenge, to the United States and its P5+1 partners in the nuclear negotiations, to do their part to make such progress possible. This is true no matter which of several possible interpretations of the details of politics in Iran is valid… Rouhani’s election presents the United States and its partners with a test—of our intentions and seriousness about reaching an agreement. Failure of the test will confirm suspicions in Tehran that we do not want a deal and instead are stringing along negotiations while waiting for the sanctions to wreak more damage. Passage of the test will require placing on the table a proposal that, in return for the desired restrictions on Iran’s nuclear activities, incorporates significant relief from economic sanctions and at least tacit acceptance of a continued peaceful Iranian nuclear program, to include low-level enrichment of uranium.” [NY Times, 6/17/13. Hassan Rouhani via al Monitor, 6/17/13. Paul Pillar, 6/16/13]
What We’re Reading
World leaders are gathering in Northern Ireland for a G8 summit set to be dominated by the conflict in Syria.
A top leader in al Qaeda’s North Africa branch was killed in fighting with France.
Prime Minister Petr Necas of the Czech Republic said that he would resign, following a corruption scandal involving a senior aide.
Protesters continued to demonstrate in the Turkish capital, Ankara, ahead of a nationwide strike to express disapproval of the forced evictions of demonstrators from an Istanbul Park.
North Korea offered high-level talks with the United States to ease tensions on the Korean peninsula, but the White House said that any talks must involve Pyongyang taking action to show it is moving toward scrapping its nuclear weapons.
Torrential rain and floods washed away buildings and roads, killing at least 23 people in the northern Indian state of Uttarakhand.
Egypt’s president appointed 17 new provincial governors, including seven members of his Muslim Brotherhood, adding to its already considerable power in the legislative and executive branches.
Two bombs struck a large military airport outside the Syrian capital of Damascus, with the explosions heard throughout the city.
American spies based in the UK intercepted the top-secret communications of the then Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, during his visit to Britain for the G20 summit in London, leaked documents reveal.
A blistering string of apparently coordinated bombings and a shooting across Iraq killed at least 51 and wounded dozens, spreading fear throughout the country in a wave of violence that is raising the prospect of a return to widespread sectarian killing a decade after a U.S.-led invasion.
The U.S. and the European Union are set to announce they will start talks to build an ambitious trans-Atlantic free-trade agreement at a summit of leaders of the Group of Eight leading nations
Commentary of the Day
Richard Gowen questions whether the promise of peace talks in Geneva has made the Syrian war worse.
Max Fisher claims that small arms would be unlikely to help Syrian rebels.
Edhem Eldem writes that the current protests in Turkey risk being drowned out by a simplistic dichotomy between Islam and secularism.
