Reluctantly rejoicing in Rowhani’s victory

The Israeli newspapers report on the election victory in Iran of ostensible moderate Hasan Rowhani with a mixture of satisfaction and skepticism. On the one hand, the surprising first-round victory is described as a blow to the extremist regime of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country’s supreme leader, but on the other, analysts are quick to downplay the achievement and warn against hoping for any real change in the enemy state.

“Iran: A blow to the extremists,” proclaims the front page headline of Yedioth Ahronoth, below a photo of liberal-looking Iranians wearing purple and rejoicing in Rowhani’s victory in Tehran yesterday.

“Protest vote in Iran; a sweeping win for moderate candidate Rowhani,” reads Maariv‘s front page headline over a picture of the president-elect flashing a victory sign to supporters.

Haaretz goes with a nearly identical headline: “Moderate candidate Rowhani elected Iran’s president,” along with the same photo.

Mixing news with commentary, Israel Hayom writes: “Surprise: Rowhani elected president; ‘Reason beats out extremism,'” augmented by a second headline reminding readers of the context: “He may be a ‘moderate,’ but what about the bomb?”

Yedioth goes all out with its Iranian election coverage, dedicating the first 10 pages of the paper to Rowhani’s victory. Aside from reporting on the outcome and the subsequent celebrations in the reformist camp, the paper offers an in-depth profile of the winning candidate, noting that the smiling and seemingly soft-spoken Rowhani harbors little love for the Jewish state and, in an address last year, dubbed Israel “the great Zionist devil.”

Smadar Peri writes that in the wake of the eight-year foreign relations disaster that was the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad presidency, Rowhani has nowhere to go but up. She believes that Khameini will give the new face of Iran a grace period to improve the Islamic Republic’s image abroad. “And after that, who knows.”

Iranian affairs expert Dr. Soli Shahvar writes, with a far greater degree of skepticism, that Rowhani’s victory only gives the appearance of a win for the moderates. He explains that by leaving four conservative candidates to run against Rowhani as a single reformist, the Ayatollah regime in effect threw the elections. “If the conservatives were really interested in winning, they would have ‘convinced’ some of their candidates to drop out of the race and pitched a single conservative candidate opposite Rowhani — probably Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf — and increased his chances of winning. The split in the conservative camp should be seen as the regime’s desire for a moderate to be elected.” Shahvar explains that a moderate victory helps the ayatollahs by both neutralizing excessive demands for reform from within and providing hope for the easing of sanctions from abroad.

In a tongue-in-cheek assessment of the election outcome, Igal Sarna laments Ahmadinejad’s departure, sarcastically asking how Israeli politicians will get along without their favorite punching bag. “What will we do without the Persian Hitler? What will Bibi [Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] draw at the UN? Who will Bogie [Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon] charge? What new ways will Bibi devise in order to distract the public with all the looting going on here?”

Israel Hayom’s Boaz Bismuth describes Rowhani’s win as a brilliant, albeit forced, public relations victory for Khamenei. “If it was up to him, Saeed Jalilee, Iran’s senior nuclear negotiator, would have won. But in a changing world, Iran is changing too. Not the regime, but the public. Kahmenei knows it. He experienced the violent events of 2009 and has seen what took place in the Arab world. In 2011, Khamenei realized that the only way to save his regime from a renewed outbreak of riots — deadlier than any before — is to allow the Iranian people to have their say,” writes Bismuth. However, he explains, in Rowhani, Khamenei has a moderate who is also a close friend and a founding father of the Iranian Islamic revolution. “If it wasn’t Iran, we could envision a surreal scene in which Khamenei and Rowhani retreat to a private room and raise a fine glass of scotch from Rowhani’s time studying in Glasgow. The day will come that real change arrives in Iran. The salvation will come, but it will come from the public, not from the ballot box.”

In Maariv, foreign affairs analysts Nadav Eyal writes that though it would be naive to expect any change in Iran’s policy when it comes to matters like supporting the Assad regime in Syria and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah, or backing down from its nuclear ambitions — all of which are overseen by Khamenei — “[Rowhani’s] victory is an impressive testimony to the Iranian public’s desire to resume dialogue with the world and escape from the suffocating ring of isolation. So, maybe just this morning, we can be allowed to respond with a smidgen of hope.”

Haaretz’s report on the Israeli response to the Iranian election results indicates that as far as Jerusalem is concerned, even a small degree of hope is not likely. Upon the announcement of Rowhani’s victory, the Foreign Ministry issued a response that basically said that Israel was not expecting significant change in Iran’s policies and would not let up on its demand for stern treatment of the Islamic Republic.

“After the elections, Iran will continue to be judged by its actions, in the nuclear sphere as well as on the issue of terror. Iran must abide by the demands of the international community to stop its nuclear program and cease the dissemination of terror throughout the world,” read the statement.

Meanwhile, back in Syria

Other news making headlines this morning includes a report on planned Israeli and US attacks on Syrian chemical weapons targets. Israel Hayom features an article lifted from Time magazine describing how Israeli and American military officials are planning an operation to rid Syrian President Bashar Assad of his arsenal of nonconventional weapons. According to military sources, the plan includes the possibility of American troops landing in Syria to ensure the destruction of chemical and biological facilities.

Also in Israel Hayom, Dan Margalit suggests that the publication of the Time article, at the same time that the US said it would send arms to Syria’s rebels, may be a case of Israel and the US flexing their muscles in order to avoid having to use direct force.

A front page story in Maariv reports on the return of Hezbollah flags to the Israel-Lebanese border over the weekend. Residents of the north describe their concern over seeing the large yellow flags of the terrorist organization along the border fence seven years after Israel pulled out of the security zone it had maintained there for nearly two decades. The return of the flags, in some places right next to UN peacekeeper outposts, indicates to the residents that things may be changing in southern Lebanon, never a good sign for them.

Maariv also reports on Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi’s announcement over the weekend that his country was severing diplomatic ties with Syria. Cairo went so far as to demand that Hezbollah pull its troops out of Syria and call for a special Arab League summit to discuss the civil war.

Morsi’s announcement was followed by a quick condemnation from Iran, which threatened to freeze the recently relaunched financial ties between the countries.