Supporters raise up posters depicting President Hassan Rouhani of Iran as his motorcade leaves Mehrabad Airport on September 28, 2013, in Tehran, Iran. (Photo by Majid Saeedi/Getty Images)[/caption]The visit by Iran’s new president, Dr. Hassan Rouhani, to New York and the United Nations General Assembly in September challenged every country in the Middle East, as well as those with major interests in the region, to take a hard look at their strategic assumptions. Rouhani was elected in June on a platform focusing on pragmatism, competence and hope. He was the most moderate candidate of six on the ballot, and had the outspoken endorsement of former presidents Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, known as a pragmatist, and Mohammad Khatami, the most noted reformist in Iran. With that backing, he persuaded Iranians to put their disappointment about the 2009 elections behind them and go to the ballot box once again.
More than 70 percent of the electorate voted; Rouhani received more than eighteen million votes—just over 50 percent of the ballots cast. The most conservative candidate on the ballot, reputed to be the favorite of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, received only 4 million votes. Rouhani was elected without the need for a runoff, and he took office in August. He had been president of Iran less than two months when he arrived in New York.
But Rouhani was no newcomer to the halls of power in Tehran. He was Iran’s national security adviser during the Rafsanjani and Khatami administrations, and he was the personal representative of the supreme leader on Iran’s Supreme National Security Council for nearly a quarter of a century. He was Iran’s lead negotiator with the Europeans on the all-important nuclear issue during the 2003–2005 period, when Iran suspended its uranium enrichment for nearly two years. During this time, Iran also signed the Additional Protocols to the International Atomic Energy Agency's Comprehensive Safeguards Agreement, permitting enhanced inspection and monitoring of nuclear facilities. (The enrichment suspension agreement collapsed in 2005 when the United States refused to endorse it.)
Rouhani's first few weeks in office were a flurry of activity. On the domestic side, he restored the Management and Planning Organization that his predecessor disbanded when its professional staff of economists refused to support his eccentric, populist and inflationary policies. He also brought in a team of cabinet members and advisers, most of whom are regarded as experienced professionals, who had been summarily dismissed by the ideologically-driven President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
On the foreign policy side, he appointed Dr. Mohammad Javad Zarif as his foreign minister. Dr. Zarif is considered Iran’s most accomplished diplomat. He served many years as Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations and is personally known and respected in the United States and in the wider international community. His appointment was regarded as a clear signal that the new president planned to pursue a very different approach from his belligerent predecessor.
In fact, Zarif and Rouhani have long been a team. When Rouhani was negotiating the nuclear question with the Europeans, Zarif was at the UN. There, he developed what is known as the “Grand Bargain” memo in 2003, outlining the parameters of a settlement of all major issues with the United States. He also prepared the terms of Iran’s final nuclear offer in 2005. Both were either ignored or rejected by the United States. So both men are aware of the possibilities and the pitfalls of creative diplomacy. Significantly, Zarif arrived in New York ahead of Rouhani and remained there after Rouhani had left.
During a whirlwind ten days, Zarif and Rouhani met with many of the formal and informal powerbrokers. The trip culminated in a formal presentation of the Iranian position to the foreign ministers of the P5+1, the five permanent UN Security Council members and Germany, followed by a transformative thirty-minute private conversation between Zarif and US Secretary of State John Kerry. On the following day, the world was taken by surprise when President Obama had a fifteen-minute telephone conversation with President Rouhani as he drove back to the airport.
It is easier to describe these truly historic events than it is to gauge their full impact and implications. Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel, arriving in New York a few days later, did everything he could to cast doubt on Rouhani’s credibility.
Most of the Arab states of the Middle East, though less outspoken, were at least equally skeptical. The idea of Iran striking a deal with the United States to limit and monitor its nuclear program was viewed not so much as a potential triumph of diplomacy as a boost to Iran’s prestige and influence in the region, to the Arabs’ detriment. The idea of Iran sitting down at the table with international negotiators in Geneva to begin to work out a future settlement of the Syrian issue was viewed with nothing less than alarm, since much of the effort by Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states to arm and empower the Sunni opposition has perhaps been directed more against Iran than at the Assad regime.
The Israeli and Arab front against a US opening to Iran will be heard, and registered, in Washington. But as US Secretary of State John Kerry said later, the failure to pursue a genuine peace offer from Iran would be “diplomatic malpractice of the worst order.”
The next stage will be the formal presentation of positions by Iran and the P5+1 in Geneva scheduled for October 15. That is when the symbolic maneuvers of the past two weeks will begin to be translated into action.
The world will be watching.
All views expressed in this blog post are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, The Majalla magazine.
