US/Iran: have a nice day The BBC reported that after the telephone conversation between Presidents Obama and Rouhani on 27 September the social media fizzed with excitement; ‘One of the most extraordinary tweets from the @HassanRouhani twitter account was:
Spotlight on Iran It has long been a commonplace that Arabists are said to see the Palestine problem as the magic key which could unlock the other problems of the Middle East region. Temporarily at any rate this central role seems to have passed to Iran.
Iran responds On 18 September President Hassan Rouhani of Iran told NBC News that Iran would never develop nuclear weapons (video clip at link), and spoke positively about the letters he had exchanged with President Obama. He is due to speak at the UN general assembly in New York of 24 September.
Syria, Israel, Iran A striking feature of recent developments over Syria is that US congressional and public opinion appears not to have been much influenced by an intensive campaign by the Israeli lobby led by AIPAC to make the administration stand by its earlier determination to use force in Syria.
President Rouhani of Iran Since our posting of 4 August there has been much international debate about Iran under its new president. As a comment by Reuters put it, “Iran’s recent elections produced a striking result.
Iran: a new page The election of President Hassan Rouhani of Iran has been widely welcomed, with the reservation that Iran is not run by its President.
Iran Hassan Rohani was the unexpected winner of the Iranian presidential election on 15 June. Regarded as the only moderate candidate he won 50.71% of the vote on a 72.2% turnout.
