Washington Merry-Go-Round

IMMEDIATE RELEASE 30 August 2024
WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND
Today’s Events in Historical Perspective
America’s Longest-Running Column Founded 1932
              An Iranian moderate?
By Douglas Cohn and Eleanor Clift         
 
WASHINGTON – Almost under the world’s radar, the arsenal of terrorism may be on the verge of closing the spigot, all because – dare we speculate – a moderate has come to power in Iran.
Aligned with Russia, China, and North Korea, Iran is the purveyor of evil in the Middle East and the number one supplier of arms to Hezbollah, Hamas, the Houthis in Yemen, and other terrorist organizations.
For the past several weeks, America’s friends and adversaries have been bracing for Iran’s response to the July 31 killing in Tehran by Israel of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh.
In a display of power intended to intimidate Iran from directly striking Tel Aviv or undertaking any retaliatory response that could set off a wider war in the region, two U.S. carrier task forces have been sent to the Middle East,
In our limited understanding of the internal workings in Iran the ostensibly supreme power, 85-year-old Ayatollah Khamenei, wants a hardline response that would directly target Tel Aviv. But enter newly elected President Masoud Pezeshkian, a 69-year-old heart surgeon self-identifying as a reformist and moderate. Although democratically elected, he is deemed to be subordinate to Khamenei, though that center of power appears to be shifting, the evidence being inaction. There has been no military response to the Haniyeh assassination, and it is known that Pezeshkian defied the Ayatollah by preventing an attack on Tel Aviv, and advocating specific military targets in its stead, and even these he has not initiated.
When running for office, Pezeshkian campaigned on easing tensions with the West and restoring a more pragmatic foreign policy, perhaps even reviving the 2015 nuclear pact that former President Trump terminated. 
Admittedly, it takes some reading of the tea leaves to discern what is actually transpiring in Tehran, but the more time that passes without an Iranian retaliatory strike taken in context with the new president’s background and stated views and those of the public that elected him, the more likely is the possibility that Iran has reached a pivot point.
              If this set of surmises is valid, now is the time for the U.S. and our allies to offer olive branches, beginning with a reduction in sanctions, reviving the nuclear deal, and all else that can reinforce the status and power of Pezeshkian.
              All this may come up during our upcoming presidential debate, with former President Trump taking a hardline to the conciliatory approach of Vice President Harris. The trick will be for Harris, both as a candidate and as a member of the administration, to accurately portray such a program as a peace-through-power initiative to reinforce Iran’s president while further diminishing the Ayatollah’s fading power, a power that increasingly appears to be out of step with the Iranian people.
 
          See Eleanor Clift’s latest book Selecting a President, and Douglas Cohn’s latest books The President’s First Year: The Only School for Presidents Is the Presidency and World War 4: Nine Scenarios (endorsed by seven flag officers).
          Twitter:  @douglas_cohn
          © 2024 U.S. News Syndicate, Inc.
          Distributed by U.S. News Syndicate, Inc.
END WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND