Iranian president Hassan Rouhani attends the Shanghai Cooperation Ogranisation Summit on September 13,2013, in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan. (Sasha Mordovets/Getty Images)[/caption]Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, has not denied the Holocaust. Nor has he openly threatened to wipe Israel off the map. He talks about dialogue between Iran and the international community to resolve tensions over his country’s controversial nuclear program, and even claims that he has “full authority” to negotiate on Iran’s behalf. In interviews with foreign journalists, the new president, refrains from using inflammatory language and does not engage in a live televised duel with reporters—unlike his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. US president Barack Obama acknowledges that he and Rouhani have exchanged letters, the first such communication in decades.
Inside Iran, a number of political prisoners and human rights activists have been released from incarceration. Technocrats seem to be replacing Ahmadinejad-era appointees in key positions. Iran is even doing well in sports, qualifying for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil and taking golds in the World Wrestling Championships in Hungary. Everything seems to be changing for the better. But is it?
The new Iranian president came to power promising to cure Iran’s huge economic and diplomatic ailments. He vowed to engage with the world in order to take the economy off life support and release the country from diplomatic quarantine. He will be able to do neither if he fails to address international concerns about Iran’s nuclear program.
Yet, for the first time since Iran’s nuclear program caught the world’s attention, an Iranian president has claimed to have “full authority” to negotiate on behalf of the Islamic Republic. Grand decisions on foreign policy, national security and the nuclear program have always been made by the supreme leader, currently Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and his circle of close confidants, all hailing from the military–security complex. Perhaps the fact that Rouhani has been granted such rare authority has roots in his own background: years of loyal service in key intelligence, security and military positions. The last time Rouhani had such powers was eight years ago, in his capacity as the secretary of the Supreme Council on National Security and Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator. But even then, with the reformist president Seyed Mohammad Khatami in power, the supreme leader and his hardline allies refused to make any key concessions on enrichment and UN inspections. So what has changed this time? Why is Ayatollah Khamenei, known for his vehement and visceral opposition to the West, and especially to the US, talking about showing “heroic flexibility” with the “enemy”? The answer is simple: international pressure has paid off.
Pariah states respond well to pressure. In 1990, it took an international coalition to destroy Saddam Hussein’s military machine so he would no longer pose a threat to his neighbors. International sanctions and an effective no fly zone in the 1990s played key roles in containing the madman of the Middle East. In Libya two years ago and with the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 clearly on his mind, Muammar Qaddafi, fearing the same fate as Saddam, stopped his WMD and nuclear programs. In Syria, President Bashar Al-Assad rushed to admit to the existence of chemical weapons in his country as he heard the roaring sound of a fourth US destroyer armed with Tomahawk cruise missiles entering the eastern Mediterranean. And Iran finally promised to return to the table to negotiate in good faith after global sanctions virtually emptied the government’s coffers and diplomatic isolation deprived it of most of its friends.
Diplomacy cannot be a game of all sticks and no carrots. “Speak softly, and carry a big stick,” said President Theodore Roosevelt. Offering incentives to Iran for concrete changes in its behavior and significant shifts in its handling of the nuclear program can certainly play a positive role. It is now the Islamic Republic’s turn to come forward in good faith and to make an offer to the world. The world will be listening.
