The West Must Realize Rouhani Isn't An Agent Of Change In Iran

Mr. Ridge was the nation’s first homeland security secretary and former Pennsylvania governor.

As Hassan Rouhani commences his second term as president, the West must realize that he is not and has never been as agent of change in Iran.

In the run-up to his election, Rouhani routinely invoked “violence and extremism” in his campaign rhetoric to bolster opposition to his leading opponent, Ebrahim Raisi, in the ongoing roleplay where the incumbent represents a more moderate approach than his acknowledged hardline alternative. This despite the fact that Rouhani had already demonstrated during his first term that he had no intention of challenging the violence and extremism of the clerical regime.

Many Iranians boycotted the presidential election to draw international attention to the fundamental lack of choice in a system where even self-described moderates like Rouhani are vetted by unelected clerics and judiciary officials based on their loyalty to the Supreme Leader and the ruling theocracy.

The Iranian people have always recognized Rouhani as a veteran regime insider who was a senior security official during the systematic execution of 30,000 political prisoners in the summer of 1988, many of whom were supporters of the main opposition Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK).

In 2015, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany brokered a deal with the Iranian regime, imposing restrictions on the Iranian regime’s nuclear program in exchange for tens of billions of dollars in sanctions relief. The agreement has rightly been criticized for offering too many concessions to Iran’s ruling theocracy, while effectively abandoning the original goal of definitively halting permanently the mullahs’ march to nuclear weapons.

This approach by the previous administration was prompted in large part by the expectation that Iranian behavior and U.S.-Iran relations would improve under Rouhani’s presidency. Wrong, it was a gross miscalculation. It didn’t and they didn’t.

Tehran’s anti-Western rhetoric has intensified, backed up by illicit ballistic missile tests and public declarations of readiness for war by officers of the Iranian military and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).