The world’s media has anointed Hassan Rouhani, the surprise winner of June’s Iranian presidential election, as ‘the moderate’. This is true to some degree – the hope in the cultured cleric (how many other world leaders speak five languages?) represents the ‘best we could get’ for frustrated Iranian voters fed up with the pompous posturing of former President Ahmadinejad. The bellicose Israeli Right (and their followers abroad) are disappointed that the war fever they have been stoking will be somewhat dampened by Rouhani’s election.
Still, it should not be forgotten that any real opposition or reform advocates would never have been allowed to run by the conservative Council of Guardians that vets candidates and eliminates ‘unIslamic’ contenders. Rouhani is close to Ayatollah Khamenei (the head of the Guardians) and a former chief nuclear negotiator.
