Hassan Rouhani: Is He A Moderate?

[unregistered]

 

[RobDownSouth]

Hassan Rouhani's Election Puts Israel In Difficult Position

The surprising victory of a reformist candidate in Iran's presidential election has put Israel in a difficult position as it tries to halt the Iranian nuclear program: With Hasan Rowhani likely to enjoy an international honeymoon, Israel could have a hard time rallying support for new sanctions – or possible military action – against its arch foe, even as it says the clock is ticking on Tehran's march toward nuclear weapons.

The uncertainty facing Israel was evident Sunday in the reactions among its leaders, who welcomed the signs of change in Iran while also warning the world should not be fooled.

Rowhani swept to a landslide victory in Friday's election with a call for outreach and dialogue with the international community. His predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, repeatedly clashed with the West over the nuclear issue, isolating the country and drawing several rounds of painful economic sanctions. Rowhani's victory was widely seen as a show of discontent with Ahmadinejad and Iran's hardline clerical establishment.

LINK

Let's review here:
Iran's population dumps a nuclear-saber-rattling hardliner in favor of the most moderate candidate to come out of Iran's political establishment in at least 20 years, but it's still not enough for professional pants-shitters like the cowardly Vettebigot. Oh, and Israel isn't happy either.

This election is good news for just about everyone in the world.
Bad news for the fascist "perpetual war" aficionados known as the Likkud.

 

[unregistered]

 

[mercury14]

~View post~

Cowardly.

 

[RobDownSouth]

~View post~

The didn't though so shut the fuck up, ya big dummy.

You're more than welcome to man up and attempt to refudiate my position, although I realize that "manning up" is a foreign concept to cowards such as yourself.

 

[unregistered]

 

[miles]

Moderate my ass. They're all puppets.

 

[phrodeau]

You are desperately clutching at any straw in order to keep the threat level high in your mind.

 

[RobDownSouth]

No Merc, Rob is and always has been the coward. I'm punishing his lying, racist, ass. There is no legitimacy to his arguments as they contain no virtue, they are designed to injure the character of others. So he gets what he gets until he apologizes. I may take him off Iggy when I feel like trading barbs, when it bores me I slap him back on Iggy. Has nothing to do with cowardice on my part, I can work out on him all day if I want to.

• You are a coward.
• You have always been a coward.
• You will always be a coward.

You're not man enough to debate ideas, so you cower in the iggy bunker and throw verbal grenades at your political foes.

 

[unregistered]

 

[mercury14]

I haven't read anything about him but I assume moderate is a relative term.

It was designed to give Rob, Merc, and ProDunce, a boner about Obama's foreign policy.

Wait. What? What does this have to do with Obama's foreign policy?

 

[KingOrfeo]

Bob Dreyfuss blogs in The Nation:

Reform Victory in Iran Could Start a New Era

Bob Dreyfuss on June 15, 2013 - 10:35 AM ET


UPDATE—Iran’s interior ministry confirmed on Saturday that Hassan Rouhani, the standard-bearer of the reformist movement and a decided moderate in Iran’s political spectrum, will be the next president, succeeding Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in August. His election means big changes, and a new attitude that will eventually carry over into foreign policy.

Celebrations, including dancing in the street, greeted the announcement that Rouhani had won.

Here’s an account by the Associated Press:

Wild celebrations broke out on Tehran streets that were battlefields four years ago as reformist-backed Hasan Rowhani capped a stunning surge to claim Iran's presidency on Saturday, throwing open the political order after relentless crackdowns by hard-liners to consolidate and safeguard their grip on power.

"Long live Rowhani," tens of thousands of jubilant supporters chanted as security officials made no attempt to rein in crowds — joyous and even a bit bewildered by the scope of his victory with more than three times the votes of his nearest rival.

Saeed Laylaz, a pro-reform economist and shrewd observer of Iranian politics (who I met in Tehran in 2009, before he was arrested in the post-election crackdown), told the New York Times:

“There will be moderation in domestic and foreign policy under Mr. Rowhani. First we need to form a centrist and moderate government, reconcile domestic disputes, then he can make changes in our foreign policy.”

The paper also quotes a late-in-the-campaign speech by Rouhani, who said, “Let’s end extremism.”

He’s emerged as something of a champion of women’s rights and liberalization of the morality-police repression in the name of ultra Islam, which no doubt helped him amass a total of 50.7 percent of the vote, enough to avoid a runoff on June 21.

ORIGINAL POST—The apparent victory by Hassan Rouhani in Iran’s presidential election yesterday is a game-changer.

As he went to the polls yesterday, here’s what Rouhani had to say:

“I have come to destroy extremism and when I see that these extremists are worried by my response and my vote I am very happy. It means that with the help of the people we can instill the appropriate Islamist behavior in the country.”

And another campaign quote from Rouhani:

“It is not that Iran has to remain angry with the United States forever and have no relations with them. Under appropriate conditions, where national interests are protected, this situation has to change.”

The results aren’t official yet, but Rouhani, who’d been endorsed by two former presidents, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami—the billionaire businessman who’d backed the reformists in 2009 and the godfather of the reformist movement—was riding an electoral wave. As the votes mounted, his total passed the critical 50 percent threshold that would avoid a runoff election next Friday. The other candidates, including a passel of conservatives supposedly including the one “anointed” by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, all had percentages in the teens or below.

So much for the idea that elections in Iran are a joke. So much for the idea that Iran’s voters were so disenchanted by the aftermath of the 2009 election that they’d boycott the vote. So much for the idea that Khamenei, insisting on the election of an ultra-conservative, would rig the vote count against Rouhani, who’d emerged as the standard-bearer for the reformist movement. So much for those analysts who argued that the Green Movement was dead and buried.

Rouhani himself is a critic of the post-2009 crackdown and he’s hinted that he’ll act to release those still held, presumably including Mir Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, the 2009 reform candidates who’s vote was hijacked by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Rouhani has called for a “rights charter” and said that he’d encourage “freedom of expression, thought and discussion.”

Meanwhile, the former nuclear negotiator for Iran under President Khatami and, before that, top national security adviser to President Rafsanjani will have a chance to “reset” relations with the United States. Just as important, the emergence of Rouhani as president of Iran gives President Obama a tremendous opportunity to restart talks with Iran on a new basis; and the fact that Iran’s next president won’t be named Ahmadinejad means that all of the efforts by hawks, neoconservatives and the Israel lobby to demonize Ahmadinejad are now for naught.

Now that Rouhani might be president, it also means that many of the former officials, ambassadors and policy experts ousted by Ahmadinejad (and kept in political exile by the conservative coalition and military-dominated bloc that ruled Iran under him) can return to office.

The results, of course, have to be certified by the Interior Ministry, still under the control of Ahmadinejad. And, there’s still a chance that the Guardian Council will weigh in. But the announced results so overwhelmingly favor Rouhani that he seems locked in, and if his total falls below 50 percent he’d still be a shoo-in in a two-person runoff.

Listen, now, to the American right-wing and neoconservatives, who’ll argue that the election doesn’t matter, since Ayatollah Khamenei controls policy and decision-making. True, under the Iranian system, the supreme leader is very, very powerful. But Rouhani’s election means that there will be a new team in place, and that Khamenei will have to accommodate it. The last time a reformist was president, intended reforms—enacted by a reformist-controlled parliament—were nearly all overturned by the Guardian Council, with Khamenei’s approval. On the other hand, President Khatami, with Rouhani at the head of the nuclear negotiation team, did indeed negotiate with the European Union in good faith, and at one point (until the election of Ahmadinejad in 2005) Iran suspended the enrichment of uranium temporarily in order to help the talks succeed.

Now, Rouhani says, speaking of the crisis in relations with the United States:

“We have to gradually defuse this hostility, take it down a notch to a tense relationship, and then move toward reducing the tensions.”

Let’s hope so.

Jack Straw, the former UK foreign secretary, who’d met Rouhani, had this to say:

This is a remarkable and welcome result so far and I’m keeping my fingers crossed that there will be no jiggery-pokery with the final result. What this huge vote of confidence in Doctor Rouhani appears to show is a hunger by the Iranian people to break away from the arid and self-defeating approach of the past and for more constructive relations with the West. On a personal level I found him warm and engaging. He is a strong Iranian patriot and he was tough, but fair to deal with and always on top of his brief.

 

[RobDownSouth]

I haven't read anything about him but I assume moderate is a relative term.



Wait. What? What does this have to do with Obama's foreign policy?

It has absolutely nothing to do with President Obama's foreign policy.

More bad news for perpetual-war Likkudites:
Rouhani vows transparency on nuclear issue

"Our nuclear programmes are completely transparent," Mr Rouhani told a packed hall in the capital Tehran.

"But we are ready to show greater transparency and make clear for the whole world that the steps of the Islamic Republic of Iran are completely within international frameworks," he said.

LINK

 

[unregistered]

 

[unregistered]

 

[RobDownSouth]

The Nation?

Cowardly Vettebigot has nothing, so he's forced to "shoot the messenger" once again.

 

[KingOrfeo]

The Nation?

As a source, it compares favorably with Breitbart.

 

[unregistered]

 

[mercury14]

Read the fucking article.

The article is just Breitbart yammering about how the media loves Obama... Despite the fact that they just said the media turned on Obama.

Anyway I asked a question to you, not to Breitbart (God rest his soul).

 

[KingOrfeo]

Bullshit.

Well, I did put that too mildly: As a source, The Nation is entirely credible compared to Breitbart.

 

[Liar]

Moderate? Meh. Relatively. Less of a polarizing yahoo than Ahmadinejad? Seems so. But that's a low bar.

 

[RobDownSouth]

Moderate? Meh. Relatively. Less of a polarizing yahoo than Ahmadinejad? Seems so. But that's a low bar.

Agreed, but it's worth noting that when Ahmadinejad took over a few years back, one of his first official acts was to sack Rouhani, and publicly excoriate him as "too moderate".

That's quite an endorsement, imho.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Moderate? Meh. Relatively. Less of a polarizing yahoo than Ahmadinejad? Seems so. But that's a low bar.

No doubt. But what matters is that this is an improvement, and reduces the possibility of the U.S. and Iran going to war.

 

[KingOrfeo]

Bob Dreyfuss again:

Will Obama Blow His Chance With Iran's New President?

Bob Dreyfuss on June 17, 2013 - 10:25 AM ET

Here’s a question for the White House: Do you think it’s a good idea to greet the new president of Iran, who might be willing to seek a long-lasting accord with the United States, with a head-on confrontation with Iran and Russia in Syria?

Hint: the answer is no.

Hassan Rouhani, who’ll take over as president of Iran in August, stunned the world with an outright, 50-percent-plus victory in the June 14 election. By all accounts, he’s a thoughtful, centrist cleric with a moderate outlook. As president, Rouhani will have a lot of power, but he will still have to operate within Iran’s very intricate political system—just as, say, President Obama has to do in dealing with Congress, the courts, his own fractious Democrats, the Pentagon and public opinion. In Rouhani’s case, he has to maneuver around Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader, Iran’s own conservative-dominated parliament, Iran’s judiciary (and the Guardian Council), the entrenched power of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and other centers of power.

Thus, Rouhani will need all the help he can get. Some of that help will have to come from the United States, including positive signals that Washington is ready to deal. But an American-backed war in Syria, aimed at forcible regime change against Iran’s chief regional ally, can only weaken Rouhani and stiffen the opposition of Iranian hardliners, including the IRGC. And, of course, the best way for the United States to aid Rouhani in his internal battles will be do sweeten the offer in the now-stalled nuclear negotiations, finally making it clear that Washington is ready to endorse Iran’s enrichment program under proper international safeguards.

In his first post-election news conference on Sunday, Rouhani couldn’t have been more explicit. “This victory is the victory of wisdom, moderation and awareness over fanaticism and bad behavior.” And, in a televised debate just before the election, Rouhani explicitly addressed the nuclear issue. “We have to calculate our national interests. It’s nice for the centrifuges to run but people’s livelihoods have to also run, our factories have to also run.” That doesn’t mean that Rouhani is ready to give away the store on the nuclear issue. He won’t. Not only that, he can’t. But it does mean that—like his chief patron, Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the billionaire businessman who’s been chafing under economic sanctions—he recognizes that Iran’s hard line on enrichment has led to the country’s political and economic isolation from the West. Unlike Saeed Jalili, the current nuclear negotiator and ultra hardliner—who, in his own, failed presidential campaign, called for Iran to live under a “resistance economy”—Rouhani and Rafsanjani realize that the nuclear program isn’t Iran’s number-one priority, especially when a workable deal can be so easily reached.

The initial response by the United States to Rouhani’s surprise win was mixed. Naturally, in the United States the right, the neoconservatives and the Israel lobby—and Israel itself—are going out of their way to say Never mind the Iran election! Move on—there’s nothing to see here! But the White House reaction has nevertheless been welcoming—in words, at least. Dennis McDonough, the White House chief of staff, said:

“I see it as a potentially hopeful sign. I think the question for us now is: If he is interested in, as he has said in his campaign events, mending his relations—Iran’s relations with the rest of the world—there’s an opportunity to do that.”

Not that the United States was exactly gracious in greeting Rouhani. As Jonathan Steele, writing in The Guardian, notes:

The Obama administration needs to take stock and think hard after this surprise result, especially as its first reaction was full of hasty blunders. It patronised Iranian voters by saying they showed “courage in making their voices heard” and was rude in urging Rouhani to “heed the will of the Iranian people”. If the White House is really “ready to engage the Iranian government directly”, as it said on Saturday, why did it not have the courtesy to send Rouhani a message of congratulations?

In any case, nice words won’t help Rouhani get the upper hand at home. If the war in Syria escalates, the United States—by arming the rebels, authorizing a covert operations project by the CIA, building up US forces in Jordan—could push Iran and Russia to meet the United States on the Syrian battlefield. And unless the United States offers Iran an explicit deal to eliminate sanctions in exchange for a nuclear deal, Rouhani may not have the leverage that he’ll need at home.

The Wall Street Journal, in an important news analysis, says that the United States and Europe are ready to test Rouhani in future negotiations:

The Obama administration and its European allies—surprised and encouraged by Hassan Rouhani’s election as Iran’s next president—intend to aggressively push to resume negotiations with Tehran on its nuclear program by August to test his new government’s positions, U.S. and European diplomats say.

But it’s a one-way test, according to the Journal:

Washington and Brussels are eager to quickly test whether Mr. Rohani’s unexpected victory could pressure Mr. Khamenei into softening his position on the nuclear issue or scaling back Tehran’s broader rift with the West, these officials said.

Nothing, you’ll notice, about whether the United States will itself make a more palatable offer to Iran in the hope that its new leader will respond in kind.

Rouhani, who was Iran’s negotiator under President Mohammad Khatami—the godfather of the reformist movement who, like Rafsanjani, endorsed Rouhani just says before the election—is a shrewd negotiator himself. In his campaign, defending himself against the hardliners (including Jalili), Rouhani often made the point that when, under his watch, Iran suspended its enrichment program, that allowed Iran to forge ahead by quietly building facilities to advance the program later on. Now, Rouhani skeptics in the West are using those statements against him, trying to portray his as sneaky or duplicitous. But the fact is, no deal was reached in 2003–05, and no deal has been struck since. It’s time for a deal.

Vali Nasr, a former Obama administration insider who’s been critical of the White House, says that now the United States has to negotiate with far more flexibility than its shown so far:

To take advantage of Rouhani’s victory and break the logjam over nuclear negotiations, Washington has to put on the table incentives it has thus far been unwilling to contemplate. It will have to offer Iran sanctions relief in exchange for agreeing to Western demands. At a minimum, the United States would like Iran to accept IAEA demands for intrusive inspection of its nuclear facilities; cap its uranium enrichment at 5 percent, and ship out of the country its stockpile of uranium enriched to 20 percent. Iran in turn wants a formal recognition of its right to enrich uranium and, more immediately, the lifting of crippling sanctions on its financial institutions and oil exports. Ahmadinejad is faulted in Iran for wrecking the country’s economy. Populism, mismanagement, and international isolation have combined to put Iran’s economy into a downward spiral. Between 2009 and 2013, real GDP growth has fallen from 4 percent to 0.4 percent, unemployment has risen to 17 percent, and inflation has grown to 22 percent—and those are official numbers, which tend to downplay the gravity of the economic crisis. It is estimated that 40 percent of Iranians live below the poverty line. Reformists will grow in strength if they are able to show that they can reverse that trend by at least getting the West for the first time to offer negotiating away specific sanctions.

 

[Squibbs]

Moderate? Meh. Relatively. Less of a polarizing google than Ahmadinejad? Seems so. But that's a low bar.