On Sunday, Hassan Rouhani was sworn in the new Iranian president. Abbas Milani thinks his proposed cabinet shows promise:
[I]n spite of dire warnings from websites close to Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guards (IRGC), Rouhani did include in his 18 cabinet nominees (who must be approved by Parliament) some key figures close to the reformists and to Rafsanjani. …
His nominee for foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, is easily his most important olive branch to the U.S. and the rest of the international community. The American-educated Zarif was the country’s one-time representative to the United Nations, and has extensive ties to American political and financial leaders. Zarif has a well-earned reputation as a consummate diplomat, and is firm in his belief that rapprochement with the U.S. and the West is a key to the regime’s long-term survival and interest. He is, like Rouhani, of the opinion that Iran should safeguard its legal rights under the Non-Proliferation Treaty—including the right of enrichment—but must do so while affording the international community the requisite guarantees that the country’s nuclear program will not be diverted to military use.
Ishan Tharoor also focuses on the potential foreign minister:
Zarif’s appointment won’t thaw relations between Washington and Tehran overnight. “People who are celebrating should be a little more cautious,” says Edward Luck, a former high-ranking U.N. official who is now dean of the Joan B. Kroc School of Peace Studies at the University of San Diego. “We’ll get a better face, better music, but the basic fundamentals of the relationship with the U.S. will be the last thing to change, not the first.”
As Foreign Minister, Zarif of course will have a global agenda, not just an American one, and will enter office at a delicate moment at home.
“He will have to be a little careful, he’ll have to look over his right flank,” says Luck. The Rouhani administration has to wade through an economic mess inherited from Ahmadinejad’s tenure and do damage control in the neighborhood. Relations with key regional players like Saudi Arabia are at the lowest of ebbs. “There’s also the situation with the Arab Spring, conflicts in Syria, tensions in Egypt. The U.S. is not the central part of the conversation,” says Trita Parsi, president of the National Iranian American Council, which seeks to build bridges between Washington and Tehran.
Ben Cohen isn’t convinced of any moderation:
Since his election, Rouhani has repeated the mantra that Iran’s nuclear program is entirely peaceful, declaring, “The nation will only be happy when we neutralize the plots of the U.S. We will protect the nuclear technology alongside any other technology.” Essentially, Rouhani wants us to believe that Iran’s nuclear program is benign simply because he says so. Yet he has given no indication that he will permit the IAEA to thoroughly inspect the nuclear facilities, nor has he even hinted whether Iran will reveal additional secret nuclear installations, such as the underground uranium enrichment plant at Fordow that was exposed by the U.S., British, and French intelligence agencies in 2009.
On the domestic front, Ahmad Alehossein suspects Rouhani faces serious obstacles:
[T]he new government may not even be able to pursue such moderate reforms for some very obvious reasons: (1) further economic liberalization in the context of the existing harsh economic sanctions, falling foreign investment, and international isolation is practically impossible unless Iran’s deep state radically changes its nuclear programme; (2) Iran’s economy is structured around a rentier capitalist system mostly dominated by the military and religious-financial institutions only responsible to the supreme leader. Therefore, further economic liberalization in this context means further monopolization (as has already been the case) which in turn strengthens the deep state; (3) Dealing with a double-digit unemployment, a relentlessly growing inflation rate, and a historically unprecedented inequality requires measures such as substantial investments in infrastructures and participatory planning which are in contradiction with the very basics of Rouhani’s economic doctrine.
Max Fisher watches Rouhani’s first press conference, featured in the above video:
The bad news: Wants the U.S. to make the first big move by lifting sanctions
The dilemma in any peace process is that, often, one side has to make the first concession. But in a conflict like this one, where both sides have felt previously burned by the other, that can be a major sticking point. So it’s unsurprising but not encouraging to see Rouhani set a pretty high bar for “first steps”: he said he wants the U.S. to demonstrate its good faith by raising sanctions. From Rouhani’s perspective, this makes sense because the U.S. can always turn sanctions back on, whereas any cuts that Rouhani makes to the nuclear program will be much tougher to reverse if the peace process falls though. Still, this seems unlikely to happen, in part because Obama is probably not going to want to take the enormous foreign policy and domestic political risk of lifting sanctions, given that he can’t guarantee that Rouhani will both want and be able to reciprocate.
The Dish 