TIMOTHY CLARY/AFP/Getty Images
Hassan Rouhani, calmer than his predecessor, but maybe more dangerous.
He neither rants nor raves, nor does he spout anti-Semitic visions of a nuclear Holocaust, and so the world really, really wants to believe Iran’s new president is a “moderate” who is ready to verifiably prove his nation has no interest in developing nukes.
In his global debut at the UN General Assembly Tuesday, Hassan Rouhani played skillfully to those wishful hopes, in the process emerging as a more dangerous player than his transparently maniacal predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad,
Oh, did Rouhani sound reasonable in the culmination of a social media-fed campaign. And, oh, how sweet he doth tweet in messages portraying his master, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as having abandoned long-held, theocratically-driven dreams of Islamist dominion.
Not for an instant should anyone see Rouhani’s magical, mystery transformation as anything but yet another strategic delay — one meant to make the existential red line drawn by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appear to be irrational “war-mongering,” to use the term employed by Rouhani.
With clear-eyed realism, the Israeli government has described Rouhani’s tactics as “smile but enrich” uranium toward a weapons grade state. Smartly, Israel’s UN delegation boycotted Rouhani’s address to highlight that only the style had changed on the part of a regime with a record of calling for the destruction of the Jewish state.
At the heart of his speech, Rouhani disavowed any interest in obtaining the world’s most dangerous weapons; he said the Muslim religion is flatly opposed to obtaining nukes. Not reassuring. More than seven years ago, Khamenei issued a fatwa against nuclear weapons — and then went right on getting ever closer to nuclear capability with missile system.
Still more revealing, Rouhani described U.S. and Western sanctions as “violent, pure and simple,” suggesting that he envisions still more rounds of talks about easing the economic vise as a condition for Iran to do anything about opening its programs to inspection and dismantlement.
In his time on stage, President Obama was what his foreign policy has repeatedly failed to be, particularly in recent months: clear and internally consistent. He pulled no rhetorical punches on the need to deliver a tough response to Bashar Assad’s use of chemical weapons in Syria and to block Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Opening the door to talks between Secretary of State John Kerry and his Iranian counterpart — a last-ditch effort to persuade the heretofore impenetrable Tehran regime to think twice — he said “conciliatory words will have to be matched by actions that are transparent and verifiable.”
What Obama did not do is lay out an “or else.” Perhaps because, having flinched from his red line in Syria, such a threat would likely be perceived as hollow, by the American people if not by the world.
In the end, Rouhani couldn’t fit onto his agenda a handshake with Obama, much vaunted by those who want so badly to believe the Rouhani is the face of a new Iran. Good.
The President of the United States would have had no business engaging in such a show of faith, and will not until Rouhani proves that he deserves it with radically different actions.
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via Great Local News: New York http://newyork.greatlocalnews.info
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