Reuters reports: Iran is on course to develop a nuclear bomb within six months and time has run out for further negotiations, a senior Israeli minister said.

Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz said Iran still believed it had room for maneuver in dealing with world powers, and that unless it faced a credible threat of U.S. military action, it would not stop its nuclear activities.

“There is no more time to hold negotiations,” Steinitz, who is close to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, said in an interview with the Israel Hayom daily published on Friday. [Continue reading…]

The Jerusalem Post reports: Jerusalem urged the world on Thursday not to be fooled by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s smiles and to intensify sanctions against the regime until he takes concrete steps toward dismantling Tehran’s nuclear program.

“One should not be taken in by Rouhani’s deceptive words,” the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement. “The same Rouhani boasted in the past how he deceived the international community with nuclear talks, even as Iran was continuing with its nuclear program.”

The Prime Minister’s Office comments followed the Iranian president’s two-part interview with NBC on Wednesday and Thursday that aired just before he is to fly to the US and address the UN General Assembly.

Rouhani said Iran was not seeking war, and slammed Israel for bringing “instability” to the Middle East and for questioning his government’s intentions toward nuclear arms.

He called Israel “an occupier, a usurper government that does injustice to the people of the region,” and said it “has brought instability to the region with its war-mongering policies.” [Continue reading…]

The New York Times reports: A series of good-will gestures and hints of new diplomatic flexibility from Iran’s ruling establishment was capped on Wednesday by the highest-level statement yet that the country’s new leaders are pushing for a compromise in negotiations over their disputed nuclear program.

In a near staccato burst of pronouncements, statements and speeches by the new president, Hassan Rouhani; his foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif; and even the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the leadership has sent Rosh Hashana greetings to Jews worldwide via Twitter, released political prisoners, exchanged letters with President Obama, praised “flexibility” in negotiations and transferred responsibility for nuclear negotiations from the conservatives in the military to the Foreign Ministry.

“They’re putting stuff out faster than the naysayers can keep up,” said Gary Sick, an Iran expert with Columbia University. “They dominate the airwaves.”

Mr. Rouhani, preparing for a trip to New York next week for the annual gathering of the United Nations, kept up the dizzying pace on Wednesday in an interview with NBC News in which he declared that Iran would never “seek weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons” and that he had “full power and complete authority” to make a nuclear deal with the West.

There is plenty of skepticism in the West over the new tone emanating from Tehran, and Iran veterans have seen previous thaws in the diplomatic climate disappear seemingly overnight. Mr. Obama has spoken of testing Mr. Rouhani’s seriousness.

But Iran experts, citing the apparent end to Iran’s ideological taboo against direct talks with the United States as well as the apparent concurrence of the supreme leader, say that this new moderation seems different. [Continue reading…]

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The Guardian reports: Iran’s most prominent human rights activist was released from jail on Wednesday along with several other political prisoners in what appears to be the most tangible sign of change yet under the new Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani.

Ahead of Rouhani’s eagerly awaited visit to the UN general assembly in New York next week, Nasrin Sotoudeh, who has been likened to Aung San Suu Kyi, was driven from Evin prison in Tehran to her house in another part of the Iranian capital and told she did not need to return to jail.

“They were quite certain this time that I’m freed and I don’t need to go back,” the 50-year-old women’s rights activist told the Guardian by phone from her home.

Opposition website Kaleme reported on Wednesday that seven other women political prisoners had also been released in the previous 24 hours, including the dissident journalist Mahsa Amrabadi, and at least four men, including reformist politicians Feizollah Arabsorkhi, Mirtaher Mousavi and former deputy foreign minister Mohsen Aminzadeh.

“In the past, when I was granted prison leave they used to give me a document, this time they gave me nothing,” said Sotoudeh, who last October was awarded the European parliament’s most prestigious human rights award, the Sakharov prize for freedom of thought, which has previously been won by Suu Kyi and Nelson Mandela.

“My goals and mentality are the same as before, I haven’t changed,” Sotoudeh insisted, adding that like other lawyers she would still work “to restore justice and defend the rights of protesters”.

The prisoner releases have come amid increasing signs of a political opening-up in the Islamic republic following Rouhani’s inauguration last month and as he prepares for his UN visit, which many have suggested may be the scene for a historic meeting between the Iranian president and Barack Obama. [Continue reading…]

The question is, can Obama muster the heroic flexibility to defy the Israel lobby and talk to Rouhani? They are going to be in the same building at the same time. Can the U.S. really afford to squander such an opportunity? If nothing else, a friendly greeting to a noteworthy visitor really should be a matter of common courtesy. A handshake should be a bare minimum and since — as the media now credits Rouhani as a bona fide “moderate” because he’s had a Western education and speaks fluent English — can’t they at least have a conversation?

Reza HaghighatNejad writes: Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has created a stir this week by declaring that he supports “heroic flexibility” in diplomacy, during a speech to commanders of the Revolutionary Guards. The term has been the buzz of Iranian media since Khamenei uttered it, raising questions as to what precisely the supreme leader meant with his elusive phrasing.

This isn’t the first time Khamenei refers to “heroic flexibility.” On September 5, during a meeting with members of Assembly of Experts he said, “artistic and heroic leniency and flexibility in all political arena is desirable and acceptable,” though he cautioned that this “maneuvering must not mean passing redlines, regressing from fundamental strategies, and disregarding the ideals.”

Even so, emphasizing these words in the presence of Guards’ commanders, the powerful military and political figures most loyal to him, suggests that Khamenei is not playing with shades of meaning but signaling a new approach.

If “heroic flexibility” suggests a new approach, how can this nascent policy be interpreted? In the same speech, Khamenei outlined the main condition for this type of diplomatic flexibility to be exercised: “A technical wrestler may also show some flexibility on technical grounds occasionally, but does not forget who his opponent is and what his main goal is.”

What Khamenei is likely stressing here is that the Rouhani government’s diplomatic innovations must be limited to the technical area of Iran’s nuclear program. Khamenei has said recently that though he is not optimistic about negotiations with the United States, he has issued permission for certain case-by-case negotiations. Talking about case-by-case negotiations is, in fact, a manifestation of the reason for diplomatic leniency. Hossein Mousavian, a former Iranian nuclear negotiator, has recently said that the supreme leader has permitted President Hassan Rouhani to hold direct talks with the United States.

Khamenei also emphasized, however, that he expects the new cabinet to project an image of strength, as it is representing the regime politically alongside whatever new diplomacy it takes forward. He spoked repeatedly in his speech about the rightfulness of the Islamic Republic, the defeat of the West, and the importance of presenting a new model to the world. He stressed that Iran’s relationship within the West and the handling of the nuclear crisis must be evaluated in the context of the West’s dealings with Islam and the Iranian state.

One of the most significant aspects of the speech was Khamenei’s efforts to prepare hardliners, especially the most radical, for the potential innovations, read concessions, of the Rouhani government. [Continue reading…]

The New York Times reports: Iran’s supreme leader seemed to put his authority behind Iran’s moderate new president on Tuesday, calling for “heroic leniency” in navigating the country’s diplomatic dispute with the West.

The president, Hassan Rouhani, was elected in June on a moderate platform of ending the nuclear standoff with the West and increasing personal freedoms. In a speech to the Revolutionary Guards, considered stalwarts of the conservative wing of the government, the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said he was “not opposed to proper moves in diplomacy.”

Enlarging on that theme, he said, “I agree with what I called ‘heroic leniency’ years ago, because such an approach is very good and necessary in certain situations, as long as we stick to our main principles.”

In what may be a further signal that Mr. Rouhani’s victory in the June election has created a chance for intensified diplomacy, the country’s Foreign Ministry confirmed on Tuesday that he had exchanged letters with President Obama.

But asked about the tone of Mr. Obama’s letter — something the Iranians are extremely sensitive about — Marzieh Afkham, the ministry spokeswoman, said Iran expected improvement in the way Washington talked to Iran.

“Unfortunately, the U.S. administration is still adopting the language of threat while dealing with Iran,” Ms. Afkham said at a weekly news conference. “We have announced that this needs to change into the language of respect.” [Continue reading…]

The Hill reports: The White House is denying that President Obama has any intention of meeting with Iran’s new president in what would be the first such encounter since the 1979 Islamic revolution.

British and Israeli media reported over the weekend that such a meeting could happen on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly in New York next week. President Hassan Rouhani, a relative moderate, is expected to address the world body on Sept. 24.

“There are currently no plans for the president and President Rouhani to meet at UNGA,” National Security Council spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan told The Hill in an email.

The Guardian reports: An exchange of letters between Barack Obama and the Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani, has set the stage for a possible meeting between the two men at the UN next week in what would be the first face-to-face encounter between a US and Iranian leader since Iran’s 1979 revolution.

Britain’s foreign secretary, William Hague, is also due to meet his Iranian counterpart, Mohammad Javad Zarif, at the UN general assembly meeting in New York, adding to guarded optimism that the June election of Rouhani, a Glasgow-educated moderate, and his appointment of a largely pragmatic cabinet, has opened the door to a diplomatic solution to the 11-year international standoff over Iran’s nuclear programme.

Tehran took the Foreign Office by surprise, tweeting on Rouhani’s English-language feed that the president would also be prepared to meet Hague, something the UK had not even requested.

“Tehran has responded positively to UK’s request. President Rouhani’s meeting w/WilliamJHague on the sidelines of UNGA has been confirmed,” the tweet said.

“We would be happy to meet,” a Foreign Office spokeswoman said, “but we have had nothing formal from Tehran about it.”

Diplomats said that the tweet reflected the new Iranian government’s eagerness to make diplomatic headway on the nuclear issue, which has been at an impasse for several years. A Hague meeting with either Rouhani or Zarif could clear the way to restoring full diplomatic ties, which have not existed since the British embassy in Tehran was ransacked by a mob in November 2011. [Continue reading…]

World should take advantage of opportunity created by election;period for solving #nuclear case will not be unlimited http://t.co/tvdTZvTDKh

— Hassan Rouhani (@HassanRouhani) September 11, 2013

Scott Lucas writes: In a prime-time interview on State TV on Tuesday night, President Rouhani had a message for the US and its allies.

The President said that Iran is ready for “serious talks” with the 5+1 Powers on Tehran’s nuclear program — as soon as possible — on the basis of mutual respect and trust.

Rouhani was not making any concessions. Indeed, he made clear that Iran will not give up sovereignty and the right to enrich uranium, and emphasized that any agreement must be “win-win”. However, the President signaled that the West could be assured he has the space and authority to reach a settlement:

The preparations have been made on our side. The first measure was for me to decide whether the negotiating body was, like in the past, the Secretariat of the Supreme National Security Council [which reports to the Supreme Leader]….I determined and announced that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs [which reports to the President] would be responsible for nuclear talks….

We are absolutely ready for serious negotiations with the world, both with P5+1 and the IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency].

The President’s office has also used Rouhani’s English-language Twitter account to put out the message that Iran is “committed to international regulations” over its nuclear program. While this is not a new message for Tehran to give, the President has made sure to emphasize it without burying it in rhetoric. [Continue reading…]

The Guardian reports: Amid a global exchange of greetings and good wishes to mark Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, which began at sunset on Wednesday, there was one from a particularly surprising quarter.

Iran’s president, Hassan Rouhani, tweeted: “As the sun is about to set here in #Tehran I wish all Jews, especially Iranian Jews, a blessed Rosh Hashanah.” A picture of an Iranian Jew praying at a synagogue in Tehran accompanied the tweet.

According to a 2012 census, there are fewer than 9,000 Jews among Iran’s population of about 75 million.

The message from Rouhani was unexpected in Israel, which has identified Iran as a huge threat to its security. It says the regime is developing a nuclear weapons programme that could be used to annihilate the Jewish state.

Barbara Slavin reports: Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said on Aug. 16 that his country is ready to serve as a “bridge” between the United States and Iran, and believes that the Iranian leadership’s acquiescence to the recent election of Hassan Rouhani means that it is serious about resolving the nuclear dispute.

Zebari, in Washington for consultations that primarily focused on rising regional sectarianism, terrorism and the Syria conflict, said in response to a question from Al-Monitor that Rouhani, 64, a cleric partly educated in Scotland, is “a credible leader” who has “very strong relations with all the key leaders in Iran.”

Still, “there are many ways his election could have been scuttled,” had Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and other power centers in Iran decided to do so, Zebari said. That Khamenei accepted the election of the least hard-line candidate allowed to run “was a statement by the Islamic Republic to the international community that it means serious business” on the nuclear issue, the veteran Iraqi official said. Zebari added that Rouhani’s win also reflected “enormous pressures” from the Iranian people who are eager to ease Iran’s diplomatic isolation and economic distress. [Continue reading…]

Marsha B Cohen writes: Last week marked the 68th anniversary of the WWII destruction of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima (Aug. 6) and Nagasaki (Aug. 9) — the first and only deployment of nuclear weapons in human history. Within moments of the nuclear explosions that destroyed these cities, at least 200,000 people lost their lives. Tens of thousands subsequently died from radiation poisoning within the next two weeks. The effects linger to this day.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has implied that this would the be fate of Israel if Iran was allowed to obtain nuclear weapon-making capabilities, including the ability to enrich high-grade uranium. To prevent this from happening, the economy of Iran must be crippled by sanctions and the fourth largest oil reserves in the world must be barred from global markets, as the oil fields in which they are situated deteriorate. Israel — the only state in the region that actually possesses nuclear weapons and has blocked all efforts to create a Middle East Nuclear Weapon Free Zone – should thus be armed with cutting-edge American weaponry. Finally, the US must not only stand behind its sole reliable Middle East ally, which could strike Iran at will, it should ideally also lead — not merely condone — a military assault against Iranian nuclear facilities.

Netanyahu invariably frames the threat posed by Iranian nuclear capability (a term that blurs distinctions between civilian and potential military applications of nuclear technology) as “Auschwitz” rather than “Hiroshima and Nagasaki”, even though the latter might be a more apt analogy. The potential for another Auschwitz is predicated on the image of an Israel that is unable — or unwilling to — defend itself, resulting in six million Jews going “like sheep to the slaughter.” But if Israel and/or the US were to attack Iran instead of the other way around, “Hiroshima and Nagasaki” would be the analogy to apply to Iran. [Continue reading…]

Marsha B Cohen writes: Mitch McConnell did it, Harry Reid didn’t. Elizabeth Warren did it, Bernie Sanders didn’t. Al Franken did it, Tom Coburn didn’t.

I’m referring to the signing of the latest letter, crafted by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and proffered by Senators Bob Menendez (D-NJ) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC), urging President Barak Obama to turn a cold shoulder to newly elected Iranian president Hassan Rouhani while pursuing a more confrontational and aggressive Iran policy. The Arms Control Association’s Greg Thielmann has already penned an important discussion of why this measure complicates efforts to reach a peaceful solution with Iran, which I highly recommend.

It is worth recalling that another Iranian president-elect, Mohammad Khatami — a reformist whose surprise election shocked the Iranian political establishment — was also greeted by sanctions pushed through Congress. On August 19, 1997, weeks after Khatami took office, President Bill Clinton confirmed that virtually all trade and investment activities by US persons with Iran were prohibited. Those sanctions not only boosted Iranian hardliners who oppose a detente with the US, they also helped ensure that Khatami and his supporters would be unsuccessful in making many of the economic improvements and political changes needed to improve the lives of the Iranian people. His crippled victory was followed by the election of hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2005. Since then, dozens of letters, resolutions and sanctions bills have emanated from Congress, which of late seems incapable of accomplishing anything else. [Continue reading…]

The Wall Street Journal reports: Iran’s new president, Hasan Rouhani, moved to significantly reduce the presence of the country’s elite military unit, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, in Tehran’s next government — a trend U.S. and European officials cautiously take as a hopeful sign for international efforts to contain Iran’s nuclear program.

Mr. Rouhani’s cabinet appointments in recent days have marked a sharp reversal from a nearly decadelong trend in which IRGC personnel increasingly have dominated many branches of Iran’s government, and their companies have taken over key industries in the national economy.

The IRGC is the country’s most powerful military, economic and security force, and has led the decision-making on Tehran’s role in the conflicts in Syria, Iraq and the Palestinian territories, according to Iranian and Arab officials. Its nation-wide paramilitary organization, the Basij, was the lead force in the crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators in 2009.

About half of outgoing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s last 18-person cabinet consisted of IRGC personnel, either active officers or recently retired ones. Estimates are that Mr. Rouhani has selected three, according to Western officials and Iran experts.

Mr. Rouhani has stressed since winning Iran’s presidential election in July that his primary focus will be on revitalizing Iran’s crisis-hit economy and rolling back a U.S.-led sanctions campaign on Tehran that has cut the government’s oil revenues by more than half.

At least 10 of Mr. Rouhani’s cabinet appointments are technocrats and economic planners with ties to Iran’s former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who sought to promote international trade while in office during the 1990s. [Continue reading…]

Rami G Khouri writes: I would love to know who is the jerk who wrote the White House’s press statement on the occasion of the inauguration last week of the new Iranian president, Hassan Rouhani. I say this was the work of a jerk, and of a band of war-addicted zealots in Washington, because it seemed designed to totally bury the opportunity that Rouhani represents to improve the well-being of Iranians and resolve Western-Iranian and Arab-Iranian tensions on a variety of important issues.

It is useful in today’s very turbulent Middle East to separate what can be changed quickly from issues that require a longer time frame – and to grasp the real relationship between them. So for example, is terrorism, like Islamic, Jewish or Christian religious fanaticism, a cause of insecure states, or a consequence of them? Structural issues such as terrorism, gender parity, and environmental, economic and demographic stress require many decades to improve. Political conflicts can be resolved more quickly, if political leadership capabilities are available. The two most important conflicts exacerbating many tensions in the region are the century-old Palestinian-Israeli and wider Arab-Israeli conflicts and the more recent Iranian-American and wider Iranian-Western conflict.

Progress on defusing these conflicts will help to tone down many other tensions around the region. The Iranian-American and Iranian-Western conflicts are the most recent, and are by far the easier ones to resolve. Rouhani’s inauguration provides a moment of changes in both the substance and style of Iranian policies at home and abroad. The new president’s recent statements have emphasized his focus on “confidence-building, mutual respect, common interests and equal standing,” as guiding forces for engaging with others.

So what does the Washington jerkocracy offer in reply? A new round of sanctions against Iran from Congress, with a majority of senators asking Washington to increase sanctions and maintain a credible military threat, and a White House statement that suggests that America’s highest elected officials have learned nothing in the past decade – which is my definition of how a jerk behaves. [Continue reading…]

Stephen Kinzer writes: The election of Hassan Rouhani, who will be inaugurated today as Iran’s seventh president, opens intriguing possibilities. Since 2005, the world has known an Iranian president who spoke the language of provocation and seemed to delight in keeping his country isolated. That is about to change.

Finding a way to bring Iran back into the world’s mainstream will be Rouhani’s principal challenge. His power is limited, though in the fluid world of Iranian politics, he is likely to accumulate more. His adversaries, most notably supporters of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel and the United States, ridicule him as a puppet of repressive mullahs.

In public statements following his election, Rouhani has spoken in terms far more conciliatory than those his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, liked to use. He has pledged to walk more on the path of transparency and boost mutual trust between Iran and other countries.

President Obama told an interviewer in reply that he was open to “a whole range of measures” if Iran would “show the international community that you’re abiding by international treaties and obligations, that you’re not developing a nuclear weapon.”

That was an encouraging exchange, but far more will be required to thaw an icy relationship that has been disfigured by passionate emotions. [Continue reading…]

Michael Nazir-Ali writes: The installation of Hassan Rouhani as President of Iran next month heralds a new chapter for the country. It is clear that he was elected not only because it was felt — both at the highest levels and by the people — that he was best placed to negotiate with the West on Iran’s nuclear programme but also because he was the candidate most likely to appeal to reform-hungry Iranians.

Rouhani is a protégé of the former president Muhammed Khatami, with whom I have had the chance to work. When he was President, I spent a whole day with him meeting political, civil society and religious leaders. Visiting him in Iran, I was always struck by his learning and his humility. Khatami knew about the puritan origins of the United States and the ways that tension between religious beliefs and liberty was resolved. He never tired of pointing out similarities between the difficulties of the Iranian experience and the founding of America. In opposition to the then fashionable ‘clash of civilisations’ thesis, he launched his own ‘dialogue of civilisations’ programme.

Khatami’s presidency failed because the West, especially the US, did not respond adequately to his overtures, but also because he ran into opposition from hard-liners. His failure showed where real power resided — with the ‘Ulama’, the legal authority made up of the Guardianship of the Revolution, and with the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

The popular portrayal of Iran as a nation either driven by Islamic revolutionary fervour or by the periodic welling up of liberal political dissent does not do justice to the complexity of this society. There is constant interplay between the ancient civilisation of Iran and Islam in its political form. Iranians understand their identity as continuous with the pre-Islamic as well as the Islamic periods. Their attitude to art, for instance, particularly pictorial and even religious art, is quite different from the rest of the Islamic world’s.

Ayatollah Khomeini, the architect of the revolution, developed the notion of Wilayet-i-Faqui: the custodianship of the nation by Islamic Islamic jurists. Although there are some precedents for this in the constitutional history of Iran, such a comprehensive claim to the supremacy of Sharia and its interpreters strikes many as novel and there have been various challenges to it. [Continue reading…]

François Nicoullaud, France’s ambassador to Tehran from 2001 to 2005, writes: As Hassan Rouhani prepares to become the next president of the Iranian Islamic Republic, it is worth recalling the leading role he played as Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator in late 2003, when the clandestine program run by the Revolutionary Guards to produce a nuclear weapon was halted.

The halt in the weaponization program — as distinct from the program for uranium enrichment, power production and civilian research — was acknowledged in November 2007 by American intelligence services in their National Intelligence Estimate, and confirmed by the International Atomic Energy Agency in November 2011 in a report from the director general, who wrote: “work on the AMAD Plan [i.e. the undeclared nuclear weaponization program] was stopped rather abruptly pursuant to a ‘halt order’ instruction issued in late 2003 by senior Iranian officials.”

Based on conversations that I had at the time, as French ambassador to Tehran, with high Iranian officials close to the matter, I firmly believe that Rouhani was the main actor in the process. Of course, Iranians could not admit to a foreigner that such a program ever existed, and I cannot name the officials I spoke to. But two conversations in particular remain vivid in my mind.

The first one took place a little after Rouhani became Iran’s top nuclear negotiator in October 2003 and had reached an agreement about the suspension of Iranian sensitive enrichment activities with the German, British and French foreign ministers during their joint visit to Tehran. [Continue reading…]