'If this guy is moderate, I'm the jolly green giant,' but he has had contact with Israelis

An Iranian dissident pens a column on new Iranian President Hassan Rohani. It's not very complimentary.

For what it’s worth, I think he’s atrocious, and I was surprised when Iranians voted him in; by all accounts they were petrified at the prospect of four years under one of his even more reactionary rivals.

I say even more reactionary because there should be no doubt the man is one of ‘Them’ – an unabashed Islamist: if he is a moderate or a reformer, I’m the Jolly Green Giant.

You can’t be a moderate in Iran. Protecting the sanctity of the Islamic Republic’s founding Khomeini-ist principles, and its resulting injustices, is your raison d’etre and if you’re not up to the task, you’re dead.

It’s all very Cosa Nostra – you can’t stray; you can’t pull the wool over anyone’s eyes and thuggish credentials are a must: it’s a gangster regime, pure and simple.

For years this guy was the Secretary of Iran’s feared Supreme National Security Council.
Countless killings occurred under his watch; not least during the student uprising of 1999 which Rouhani vowed to “crush mercilessly and monumentally”.  

Gunning down students is par for the course in the Islamic Republic. A few dead young people who sought democracy are no big deal to Iranian Islamists.

July 1999 was the precursor to the protests of June 2009. Then, the original smiling mullah – the Colonel Sanders of the Islamic Republic, Mohammad Khatami, stood by as government forces attacked his supporters who were protesting the closure of a reformist newspaper. There is no reason to expect any more integrity from Rouhani.

But here's an interesting tidbit in the same article that's drawn a lot less attention:

Four years ago, people were being shot in the street. Now they are effectively washed from public consciousness in the West as the press focuses on Washington’s preoccupation with nuclear weapons – and yes, by the way: regardless of the charade being played out about whether Rouhani has referred to Israel as a sore, or a wound, or other chronic medical condition, it’s in the interests of both sides to speak to each other – and it won’t be their first time.

When Israelis were selling arms to Iran in the early 1980s during the Iran-Iraq war, Rouhani was the protégé of Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who at that time was head of the Iranian military. So the president may just need to dust down his old contacts book to overcome the nuclear impasse.

 Hmmm.