Iran: A reformist roars into power

We Iranians have shouted “a big No to extremism and radicalism,” said Hoseyn Alahi in Etemaad. The stunning first-round election of moderate cleric Hassan Rouhani, who took more than 50 percent of the vote over five conservative rivals, was a clear demonstration that Iranians “reject coercion, extremism, violent conflicts, and critical remarks.” After two terms of the abrasive rhetoric and policies of outgoing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran is increasingly isolated in the world, crippled by economic sanctions and soaring inflation. The people “want to open a way toward moderation,” and electing Rouhani shows that “preserving the dignity and credibility of the people need not mean being in conflict with the world.”

We have sent a message that the reform movement is still strong, said Mohammad Sadr in Sharq. The endorsements of our two most moderate ex-presidents, Mohammad Khatami and Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, ensured Rouhani’s win, and guaranteed the respect of the international community. The world can trust the new president to “seek a rational solution, searching for ‘win-win’ agreements” on Iran’s nuclear programs that will get the sanctions lifted while preserving Iran’s interests.

The reformists are getting ahead of themselves, said Hossein Shariatmadari in Kayhan. Rouhani doesn’t owe his victory to some swell of support for the discredited Green Movement that disrupted the peace after Ahmadinejad’s 2009 re-election. No, he profited from a chance confluence of factors, including the sputtering economy and the split in the hard-liner vote. And let’s not forget that, “contrary to the propaganda of the external enemy and their domestic followers, the policies of the system will not change” under Rouhani. He was only elected president, after all; Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei still sets our foreign policy.

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In fact, what this election really showed was the people’s allegiance to the supreme leader, said Amir Hoseyn Yazdanpanah in Khorasan News.The huge turnout—more than 72 percent—was a mark of “obedience to the supreme leader’s call to protect the Islamic system by going to the polls.” While the region is burning with “flames lit by the U.S. and its allies,” and while Iran is under intense pressure from U.S. economic sanctions and threats of war, Iranians came together to show that our political system is just and fair.

Yet there’s cause for hope that Rouhani will change Iranian policy, said Smadar Peri in Yedioth Ahronoth (Israel), and it rests on one word in his victory speech: “Israel.” While Ahmadinejad preferred epithets like “the small Satan,” or “the occupier thug,” or just “the Zionist enemy,” Rouhani chose to call Israel by its official name, “perhaps as a reconciliatory step toward the West.” Deeds matter more than words, though, said Boaz Bismuth in Israel Hayom (Israel). The West mustn’t be fooled into lifting sanctions just because the Iranian president has a soothing way of talking. A truly moderate Iran? “That’s the stuff of science fiction.”