Hope is tempered by caution both among Iranians and in the west, where some see an opportunity to repair relations.A young Iranian couple, Masoud Bastani and Mahsa Amr-Abadi, both journalists and both imprisoned on account of their writing, have seen very little of each other for the past four years. Like many Iranian prisoners they were granted occasional temporary releases, but officials always made sure they were not allowed out at the same time.
"The authorities wanted to make life yet more miserable for the two, like an extra punishment," said one of their friends. Their convictions were for colluding and spreading propaganda against the state, a frequent charge against dissidents and independent journalists. This month, however, Bastani and Amr-Abadi were reunited at their house in Tehran, andpictures on Facebookshowing the smiling couple embracing one another delighted their friends and followers.
Their newfound happiness is one of a number of small signs of change after the election in June of PresidentHassan Rouhani, a veteran pragmatist who ran on an ambitiously reformist platform. With a week until Rouhani's inauguration, such signs have fuelled hope that a peaceful "Iranian spring" could be on the way, reversing the intensifying repression of the last eight years under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Yet those hopes are tempered by bitter experience. Green shoots of civic freedoms and human rights were even more apparent under the last reformist president, Mohammad Khatami, and at the peak of the 2009 opposition Green movement, only to be emphatically quashed by conservatives in the regime and security forces.
There is even greater caution in the west about the possibility of a better relationship with Tehran and perhaps even a deal to defuse the long and dangerous standoff overIran's nuclear aspirations. National security and the nuclear programme in particular are very much the preserve of the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. But optimists hope that the intense economic pressures on Iran amplified by severe US and European sanctions thathelped carry Rouhani to victorywill drive the regime towards a historic compromise.
Rouhani has not yet formed a government, so the hopes and doubts swirling around his presidency are based mostly on speculation. However, Iranians report that since the election there has been a distinct thaw in the air.
Bastani and Amr-Abadi are not alone. More temporary releases have been handed out and a handful of the political prisoners recently granted leave have been told they need not return to jail provided they stay out of trouble. Others have been told they will be released on Eid al-Fitr, the holiday next month marking the end of Ramadan. Those on trial for political offences say they have been promised acquittal or light sentences. One recently released activist said his interrogators had been noticeably more polite, as if sensing the winds of change.
The new mood has been apparent among the police on the street. As millions of jubilant Iranians poured on to the streets to celebrate Iran's qualification for the 2014 World Cup days after the election, the police tolerated public music, dancing and slogans chanted in favour of imprisoned opposition leaders, which would have been suppressed only days before.
Last week 25 independent Iranian documentary film-makersaccused of working clandestinelyinside the country for the BBC's Persian service were all acquitted, even though at least 10 of them had previously been found guilty. The film-makers were alleged to have supplied the BBC with information, footage, news and reports misrepresenting Iran, leading to fears some would be charged with espionage. However, the country's cinema organisation, affiliated to the powerful ministry for culture and Islamic guidance, surprised many by ruling that "none of the works was found to be propaganda against the ruling system and none contained anti-revolution material".
At the same time, local media appear to be pushing back previously rigid boundaries. The semi-official Isna news agency broke a taboo by printing the names of opposition leaders under house arrest.
Summing up the popular mood, the former president Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who was blocked from standing in the election, said on Thursday: "The election's result has brought hope, peace and rationality to our country."
Even as they celebrate, many Iranians acknowledge they may be suffering from over-exuberance in view of the limited real changes to date and their extreme fragility. On Facebook and Twitter, the two-word post-election chant "Rouhani Mochakerim" (Rouhani thank you!), is increasingly used ironically as universal expression of gratitude for everyday occurrences ("My brother just passed his exams Rouhani thank you!").
The past few weeks have not just been a series of prisoner releases. There have been occasional political arrests too, such as that of the journalist Fariba Pajouh.
Faraz Sanei, of Human Rights Watch, said it was too early to declare a new Iranian spring on the basis of a few rays of sunshine. "Rouhani's win was certainly a surprise to most analysts, but it is not an indication that reformists will have the upper hand during the next four years," he said.
Rouhani's impact on Iran's relations with the rest of the world is even harder to predict. Khamenei set the tone for national security and foreign policy in the Ahmadinejad era and made clear during the election campaign that he did not intend to change under the new president.
There are signs that the regime intends to use Rouhani's softer image to try to win more friends abroad. The government has broken with previous practice to invite foreign leaders with the exceptions of US and Israel to the inauguration next Sunday.
The foreign ministry even mounted something of a charm offensive in the direction of the UK, seen in ruling circles as Iran's third worst adversary. On the occasion of the birth of Prince George, the ministry spokesman Abbas Araghchi, a UK-educated fluent English speaker, offered congratulations to the Queen and the Prince of Wales.
The conservative backlash to those comments, however, served to underline the scale of the challenge facing the new government in attempting a rapprochement with the west. Araghchi wasfiercely criticisedby parliamentary rightwingers, and state TV broadcast a furious diatribe describing the Queen as an "iron-fisted dictator" who chose members of parliament and filled key positions by appointment. "England has one of the most reactionary and medieval forms of governments," the report from London declared.
Ali Ansari, professor of modern history at Saint Andrews University, said the regime would ultimately have to resolve its contradictory views on dealing with the west. "The conservatives seem to think that Rouhani's election will change international perceptions overnight," Ansari said. "But if they think that a smiling Rouhani will get sanctions lifted and everything will be hunky dory without giving something substantial to the west, they may be surprised."
The mixed messages emanating from Tehran have deepened divisions in the west over how to respond to the dawning of the Rouhani age. The UK government hasopted not to send officialsto the inauguration, arguing that to do so would be to break with the common EU position that only local ambassadors should attend. (The UK has not had a diplomatic presence in Tehran since its embassy was stormed by a mob in November 2011.)
That decision was quickly condemned by the shadow foreign secretary, Douglas Alexander, as "a misjudgment and a missed opportunity". Ben Wallace, Conservative chairman of the British-Iran parliamentary group, also voiced concern that western mis-steps could undermine the new president. "Rouhani has a real task ahead. He has to balance the politics inside Iran while at the same time trying to bring Iran into the mainstream of the international community," Wallace said. "The danger for him and for peace is if the US and the UK move the goalposts
and are seen to be hypocritical in support of repressive Sunni regimes yet tough on the Shia nation of Iran."
The uncertainty over how to respond to Rouhani's rise is even more pronounced across the Atlantic. According to the New York Times, the Iraqi prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, passed a message purportedly from Rouhani to the White House, saying that the new president was interested in direct negotiations. As an apparent sweetener to encourage such sentiments, Washington has tweaked its draconian sanctions to allow the transfer of more medical equipment. At the same time, however, the Republican-run House of Representatives is preparing to vote on the imposition of even more stringent sanctions before going on its August recess. A joint letter by two retired senior US officers, General Joseph Hoar and Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, and Trita Parsi, head of the National Iranian American Council, publishedon The Hill's congressional blogsaid: "Rouhani's election represents what could be the last best hope for serious negotiations with Iran to produce a diplomatic resolution to the nuclear dispute. . "The House must not snuff out hopes for Iranian moderation before Rouhani even gets a chance."
By The Guardian
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