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from Ian Bremmer:
The new Iranian president’s restrained power
This past weekend, centrist candidate Hassan Rohani won the Iranian presidential election by a landslide. Rohani beat the two perceived front-runners who were hand-selected conservative loyalists to supreme leader Ali Khamenei -- and he did it with an outright majority, bypassing an expected run-off. According to the interior ministry, turnout topped 72 percent -- a level that the United States hasn’t attained in a century
During the campaign, Rohani declared, “We will open all the locks which have been fastened upon people’s lives.” But while Rohani’s sweeping victory comes as a big surprise, it’s no shock to the system in Iran. Don’t expect Rohani to open the locks fastened upon Iranian policy. He simply doesn’t hold the keys.
All major decisions on foreign policy go through the Ayatollah. In Iran, the president doesn’t have the last word on the most important security matters, like the nuclear program and Syria. Sanctions will remain in place for the foreseeable future, putting a ceiling on the near-term economic improvements that Rohani can implement. Lastly, even if Rohani did have free rein, he would not upend the system. He is a consummate insider, working his way up within the Iranian establishment: he ran Iran’s national security council for almost two decades, spent three years as the top nuclear negotiator, and he maintains the trust of the clerics. He campaigned as a moderate, not a reformer.
That being said, when President Rohani takes office in August, he will have the potential to bring about meaningful changes within the confines of these restrictions.
from Breakingviews:
Iranians put hopes for change in pragmatic insider
By Una Galani
The author is a Reuters Breakingviews columnist. The opinions expressed are her own.
Iranians have voted for an end to the conservative status quo. The surprise victory of Hassan Rohani, the sole moderate candidate, in the presidential race has shown the level of public discontent with the Islamic Republic’s hardliners, whose voices silenced others in the last few years. The high turnout also returns legitimacy to the electoral process after the rigged vote of 2009. Iran’s complex power structure means that radical shifts at home or abroad are unlikely. But the mood in Tehran has shifted.
from The Great Debate:
Why Russia won’t deal on NATO missile defense
President Barack Obama meets with Russia's President Vladimir Putin in Mexico, June 18, 2012. REUTERS/Jason Reed
President Barack Obama and Russian President Vladimir Putin are expected to discuss missile defense, their thorniest bilateral problem, at the G8 summit in Ireland on June 17 and 18. Previous talks between Russia and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization have floundered over the alliance’s refusal to give Moscow legal guarantees that the system would not undermine Russian nuclear forces.
from David Rohde:
Changing Assad’s calculus
A deserted street with building destroyed by what activists said was shelling by forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad , near Aleppo International airport, May 20, 2013. REUTERS/Nour Kelze
AMMAN, Jordan – Secretary of State John Kerry and 10 European and Arab foreign ministers gathered here Wednesday night to again talk about helping Syria’s rebels.
from The Great Debate:
Learning the wrong lessons from Israel’s intervention in Syria
Israel’s recent attacks on military targets in Syria have made clear the widening regional dimensions of Syria’s civil war. They have also fueled debate about whether the United States should intervene. Look, some say, Israel acts when it sets red lines, and Syria’s air defenses are easy to breach. Israel’s involvement has energized those, like Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.), who argue for U.S. military intervention in Syria. Unfortunately, the interventionists are drawing the wrong lessons from the Israeli actions.
The first misconception is that the Israeli strikes showed how Israel stands by its red lines in ways that bolster its credibility – a sharp contrast to the perceived equivocation of President Barack Obama’s stated red line that the use of chemical weapons in Syria would be a “game changer.”
from Thinking Global:
Seeking to avert cyber war
Amid the buzz in Washington about new North Korean nuclear threats, President Barack Obama late last week summoned 15 of America’s top financial leaders to the White House to discuss what his administration considers to be threats that are more pervasive, more persistent and less manageable ‑ cyber risks.
“The president scared the hell out of all of us, and we’re not easy to frighten,” said one member of the group, which included Goldman Sachs’s Lloyd C. Blankfein, JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon and Bank of America’s Brian T. Moynihan. “This isn’t like the nuclear threat, where it was really governments facing down governments. The American financial sector is a new battleground, and we’re going to have to invest millions of shareholders’ dollars to protect ourselves from what are essentially national actors.”
from The Great Debate:
Helping Iran safeguard its nuclear stockpile
Diplomats from six world powers are due back in Kazakhstan on Friday for talks with Iran about its controversial nuclear program. From the hawkish “bomb-bomb-bomb-Iran” crowd to the “jaw-jaw-not-war-war” folks, there is no shortage of ideas about how to resolve the Iranian nuclear issue.
Lost in the din is the prospect that the United Nations agency charged with monitoring Iran’s nuclear activities could settle the most pressing issue – by helping Iran convert its enriched uranium gas stockpile to safer metal form. If only the world powers will encourage it to do its job.
from MacroScope:
Sen. Warren flags double-standard for criminal prosecutions of banks
Massachusetts' rookie Senator Elizabeth Warren was out making waves again at a Senate Banking Committee hearing on Capitol Hill today. The former Harvard law professor contrasted the legal code affecting drug prosecutions with what she depicted as cushy settlements for large Wall Street firms that committed egregious crimes.
Take Standard Chartered. They were fined $667 million by U.S. regulators for breaching sanctions related to Iran and three other countries. Yet the bank posted a tenth straight year of record profits.
from The Great Debate:
Can diplomacy prevail with Iran?
New talks with Iran ended Wednesday with a surprising forward spin. More meetings are planned in the now decade-long American-led effort to ensure the Islamic Republic does not get nuclear weapons.
Iran must now accept or reject a proposal that offers some sanctions relief in return for Tehran’s reducing its stockpile of uranium enriched close to weapon-grade. This hopeful note – Tehran’s reaction was positive – comes as a showdown looms, because Iran continues to inch ever closer to being able to make a nuclear weapon.
