Hassan Rohani, M.E’s new lead actor

 

On the eve of a possible meeting between Sheykh Hassan Rohani, the new Iranian President and President Barak Hussein Obama on the fringe of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, an event that if it takes place, could genuinely be termed as “historic”, Iran has become the lead player on the Middle East’s scene.

That dramatic change of roles and situations is due mainly to Mr. Obama’s hesitations, tergiversations, lack of strategy and no respect of his so called “red line” in the Syrian bloody crisis, a quagmire he was saved by President Vladimir Putin’s stunning diplomatic initiatives, which were accepted and implemented immediately by Mr. Bashar Assad due to the vital role Iran plays in Syria.

The proposals were discussed by the Russian and Iranian presidents during their first meeting at the last session of the Shanghai Organisation in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan.

Overnight, from a cumbersome and unpleasant partner which could not be avoided due to its important oil and gas energies and huge nuclear arsenal, Russia, by urging Syria to accept destroying its chemical weapons, placing them under an international control and transferring them outside Syria, became an international player acclaimed by almost all the leaders of major nations, including the United States itself.

At the same time, from a State placed under international sanctions, isolated by the international community and accused of producing nuclear weapons to better assisting terrorist organizations, helping dictatorships of any kind, destroying Israel, fighting American interests everywhere and place the entire Muslim world under the control of Shi’ism, the minor branch of Islam, the Islamic Republic of Iran, after the surprise victory of Mr. Hassan Rohani in the last presidential elections, became a recognized regional actor whom leaders like French President Francois Hollande and others from major Western industrial and developing nations seeking to meet.
 
 

With one arrow, Dr. Rohani succeeded to kill three birds, namely Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Israel, three states occupying the Middle East scene until two month ago: with its unfaltering financial support amounting to more than 7 billion Dollars and military interference, by sending more than 40.000 Iranian soldiers and Lebanon’s Hezbollah fighters, the Islamic Republic, the god father of the Syrian government, helped it recovering, standing on its feet and even pushing back opposition forces helped by mainly Turkey and Saudi Arabia.

On psychological front, Tehran more or less disarmed Jerusalem when, on the occasion of the Jewish new year, both Mr. Rohani and Javad Zarif, his Foreign affairs Minister, in a dramatic change of language, congratulated the Jews worldwide on their Twitter and Face book and acknowledged the existence of Holocaust, contrary to former president, Mahmoud Ahmadi Nezhad, who, not only had wowed to erase Israel from the map of the world, but insisted that Holocaust never took place.

“Rohani is a smiling Ahmadi Nezhad, the world must not trust him. Like his predecessor, he too would push with the building of nuclear bombs”, Mr. Benyamin Netanyahu warned Mr. Obama and other world leaders, adding that Tehran needed only six months to experiment its first atomic arm.

On diplomatic level, Mr. Rohani has repeated that in order to satisfy the international community’s concern over Iran’s nuclear programs, he would offer maximum of clarity and cooperation with international nuclear inspectors, provided in return, the United States, the United Nations Security Council and the European Union would reduce economic sanctions.

This would be reiterated when, this week, Mr. Mohammad Javad Zarif, the new Foreign Affairs Minister and Head of the new Iranian nuclear negotiating team will meet Mrs. Catherine Ashton, the EU’s “super” Foreign Affairs Minister leading the 5+1 group.

In his latest  declaration on Sunday 22 September before leaving for New York to attend the UN’s General Assembly, Mr. Rohani reiterated that “the people of Iran is ready to talk to the West on condition that all the legitimate rights of the people, including the right to enrich uranium for peaceful projects, be recognized”.

If Mrs. Ashton is convinced by Iranian sincerity and agree to continue negotiations while the United Nation’s International Atomic Energy Agency’s inspectors visit any of the Iranian nuclear sites, one can say that the whole of the Middle East would be saved from a very dangerous crisis. ENDS

Safa Haeri