Militarism Vs. Diplomacy: Whose Voice on Iran Will Win?

Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani has reiterated his calls for improved relations with the West, writing in an op-ed on Monday that his country was ‘striving to remove inherited tensions’ with the U.S..

Reuters quotes the op-ed, which appears in the German news daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung as reading, in part:

The increasingly thawed relations between the U.S. and Iran have not been welcomed by Israel or hardliners in Washington.

As foreign policy analyst Jim Lobe writes at Inter Press Service, new legislation put forth by 26 senators—Democrats and Republicans—”could result in the biggest test of the political clout of the Israel lobby here in decades.” Lobe continues:

Middle East analyst Juan Cole adds:

In an address to the UN General Assembly in September, Rouhani said that “People all over the world are tired of war, violence and extremism. They hope for a change in the status quo. And this is a unique opportunity—for us all. . . Warmongers are bent on extinguishing all hope. But hope for change for the better is an innate, religious, widespread, and universal concept.”

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