Israel, US have vastly different takes on Iran's Rouhani inauguration
Washington ready to talk, while Jerusalem is warning that regime goal remains development of nukes.
By HERB KEINON, MICHAEL WILNER, REUTERSU.S. President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu(photo credit: REUTERS/Jason Reed)
Jerusalem and Washington differed on Sunday over the significance of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s inauguration, with Washington ready to work with Iran and Jerusalem warning that the new regime – like the old – is a threat to world peace.Rouhani, who won Iran’s presidential elections in June, took the oath of office on Sunday and replaced Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.“The inauguration of President Rouhani presents an opportunity for Iran to act quickly to resolve the international community’s deep concerns over Iran’s nuclear program,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said in a statement shortly after Rouhani was sworn in.“Should this new government choose to engage substantively and seriously to meet its international obligations and find a peaceful solution to this issue, it will find a willing partner in the United States,” he said.The US hoped the new Iranian government would “heed the will of the voters by making choices that will lead to a better life for the Iranian people,” Carney said.This conciliatory tone was at odds with the tone coming from Jerusalem, where Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu again urged the world not to be “taken in” by Rouhani’s perceived moderation.“On Friday, the Iranian president said that Israel ‘has been a wound on the body of the Islamic world,’” Netanyahu said at the opening of the weekly cabinet meeting.“The president of Iran has been replaced, but the goal of the regime has not been replaced, it remains as it was,” he continued. “Iran’s intention is to develop a nuclear capability and nuclear weapons in order to destroy the State of Israel, and this constitutes a danger not only to us and the Middle East, but the entire world, and we are all committed to prevent this.”Rouhani, meanwhile, has picked a cabinet of experienced technocrats for his government, saying he hoped confidence-building with foreign powers would help resolve the nuclear dispute and ease international sanctions.“The only way for interaction with Iran is dialogue on an equal footing, confidence-building and mutual respect, as well as reducing antagonism and aggression,” Rouhani said in a speech after taking the oath of office in parliament.
“If you want the right response, don’t speak with Iran in the language of sanctions; speak in the language of respect,” he said.Signaling his wish to get straight down to work, Rouhani immediately presented his list of cabinet nominees to the parliament speaker even though he has two weeks to do so.Parliament must approve the proposed ministers before they can take office. The speaker said the assembly would review the nominees in the coming week.Rouhani picked Iran’s former ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammad Javad Zarif, as foreign minister. Zarif is a respected diplomat, well known to top US officials including Vice President Joe Biden and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.Any overtures to the West would have to be approved by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has maintained a staunchly anti- Western stance since becoming Iran’s supreme leader in 1989.Rouhani chose Bijan Zanganeh to return to the post of oil minister, which he held from 1997 to 2005.Though he worked at the time under the reformist government of president Mohammad Khatami, Zanganeh is a nonpartisan technocrat thought to enjoy the protection of Khamenei. As oil minister, he helped to attract billions of dollars of foreign investment into Iran’s oil and gas sector. But that was before the imposition of stringent sanctions on the industry.Ali Tayyeb-Nia, Rouhani’s choice to head the Economy Ministry, has held government positions during the presidencies of reformist Khatami, centrist Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Ahmadinejad.Tayyeb-Nia is an economist who has specialized in the study of inflation, which Rouhani said last month stood at an annual 42 percent and must be reduced to bring a measure of economic relief to Iranians.Meanwhile, 76 US senators signed a letter sent to US President Barack Obama on Friday calling on the White House to toughen sanctions on Iran.In the letter, the large Senate group told the president that time for diplomacy was quickly running out.“Iran has used negotiations in the past to stall for time,” the senators warned, noting Rouhani’s former role as the regime’s nuclear negotiator. “And in any event, Khamenei is the ultimate decisionmaker for Iran’s nuclear program.”The senators sought a “renewed sense of urgency” to the matter.“We need to understand quickly whether Tehran is at last ready to negotiate seriously,” they said. “Iran needs to understand that the time for diplomacy is nearing its end.”Last Wednesday the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly, 400 to 20, in favor of a punishing new sanctions package targeting Iran’s oil sector. The letter signaled strong Senate support for the bill, which is expected to come before the upper house for approval in late September.Senators Robert Menendez, a Democrat and chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, and Lindsey Graham, a Republican member of the Armed Services Committee, spearheaded the letter initiative.
