Iranian President Hassan Rohani has succeeded, in the few months since his election, to break through the many layers of hard ice that had covered and constrained his country's diplomacy towards the West and the United States – a task which his predecessor, Mohammad Khatami, had failed to carry out during his eight years in office (from 1997 to 2005). This was in spite of all the political and intellectual initiatives Khatami had engaged in to achieve such a breakthrough, which by far exceeded what Rohani has been offering. Khatami did not succeed at his initiatives of openness towards neighboring countries and towards the West in general, because the Iranian religious-military establishment had been opposed to his policies of reform. Such opposition was reflected in campaigns of arrests, trials and assassinations that targeted Khatami's supporters and prominent figures of the Reformist movement – campaigns that had enjoyed the cover of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and the leaders of the Republican Guard (Pasdaran). In order to stifle any trend towards reform, a conservative and hardliner with regard to the West, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was elected President after Khatami ruled for two consecutive terms. During Ahmadinejad's term, Tehran clashed with the West and failed to achieve any progress at the level of the nuclear issue, which in turn led to tough sanctions being imposed on Iran, exhausting its economy at every level. Rohani's reformist discourse, characterized by openness towards the West, can therefore not be credited with breaking the ice of Iranian diplomacy. Indeed, the issue exceeds the position and the desires of the President, as Khatami's experience has shown. Moreover, this is not an issue that is connected to decisions made by the President, so as for the wager on change in the presidency to be a sound one. The decision to engage in such openness is one that was taken at the level of the religious-military establishment, during the final meager years of Ahmadinejad's presidency, taking shape in the election of Rohani from the first round, despite competing against strongmen of the ruling institution, precisely in order for this decision to be translated diplomatically. This is in view of his personal ability to take the initiative, as he has done so far, in terms of statements that have afforded him the possibility of meeting with major Western leaders during his presence at the United Nations, and perhaps even with President Barack Obama, which would represent the first meeting of its kind since the Islamic Revolution. This is the significance of the "flexibility" mentioned by the Supreme Leader, the primary and final decision-maker in Iran. The question is: why flexibility now? It has become clear to the religious-military establishment in Iran that the many long years of intransigence, warship diplomacy, defiance and threats have not led to any breakthrough on the opposing front at the international level, or even at the regional level. On the contrary, the international front opposed to Iran has only grown more intransigent, despite Russian and Chinese mediations, and the economic sanctions and embargo have only increased. Meanwhile, neighboring countries were becoming ever more convinced of Iran's interference in their internal affairs, reaching up to exposing espionage and terrorist networks in several Arab Gulf countries, which has only deepened Iran's isolation in the region. It thus became apparent to Iran's leadership that obstinacy in maintaining such a political course had proven a failure, and had been reflected in further deterioration at the domestic level. Such deterioration could at any moment turn into widespread rebellion that may well exceed what took place in protest of Ahmadinejad's reelection four years ago. Iran's leadership is thus now in need of some kind of breakthrough that would break its embargo and isolation and restore some of what has been lost in relations with the West and with its neighborhood. At the same time, Iran's leadership understood. from the outcome reached by the Syrian chemical weapons crisis, as a result of the US backing down on carrying out a strike against Syrian forces, that such a solution would not have been reached, had not Obama been in the White House. It is within such a framework that the messages directed by the latter at his Iranian counterpart were interpreted, messages which boil down to: let us reach an understanding. Indeed, such an understanding would no longer rely on the will of American power so much, as it would on Obama's strategy of avoiding confrontation. In this sense, Obama's presence in the White House represents a golden opportunity for Iran's leadership, one which it should take full advantage of before the end of his term in office. This is especially the case, as there is a strong chance for the White House to be once again occupied, after Obama, by a figure that would restore the policy of American inflexibility in confronting the Iranian issue, as is clearly appearing in domestic campaigns criticizing the current administration. Iran's leadership has understood that the openness shown by the White House represents an American need that should be met in order to obtain the fulfillment of Iran's own need. Thus the two needs, the American and the Iranian, have been brought together in the language of reconciliation that is being expressed these days. This is what Rohani was pointing to in his article in the Washington Post, when he spoke of "constructive interaction" and of "achiev[ing] shared objectives".
