Building on the hope of Rouhani

by Gareth Smith June 17, 2013

written by Gareth Smith June 17, 2013

When I interviewed Hassan Rouhani in Tehran back in 2005, the toughness underneath the white turban was evident. It seems glib now for Iran’s president-elect to be called a ‘moderate’ but he is certainly more pragmatic than the officials that have dominated Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presidency. Probably, the turning point in the 2013 presidential election came in the third televised debate when Ali Akbar Velayati lambasted the lack of flexibility shown by Saeed Jalili in his conduct during talks over the nuclear program since 2007. “You have not gone forward even one step, and the pressure of sanctions still exists,” said Velayati, a long-time senior advisor to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader. Related article: Rouhani, the man who could bring peace Suddenly gone was the consensus that the nuclear program was not an election issue, as Velayati bluntly addressed the realities understood by Iranian voters: that tightening United States-led sanctions

Gareth Smith

Gareth Smith was a distinguished journalist who reported from the Middle East for over two decades. He served as the Financial Times correspondent in Tehran, where he was the chief Iran correspondent from 2003, following his earlier role as Lebanon correspondent. Throughout his career, Smith covered Middle Eastern affairs for leading media outlets, including The Financial Times, The Guardian, and the BBC. He also contributed as an editor to Executive magazine. His work as a freelance journalist in the 1990s, focusing on the politics of Iran and Iraq, paved the way for his appointment at the FT. In 2009, he relocated to the west coast of Ireland, where he balanced freelance journalism with his passion for nature and the land.

Building on the hope of Rouhani

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