WarSclerotic

Jerusalem and Washington differed Sunday over the significance of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s inauguration, with Washington ready to work with the new government and Jerusalem warning that the new regime – like the old – is a threat to world peace.

Rouhani, who won Iran’s presidential elections in June, took the oath of office Sunday and formally replaced Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

“The inauguration of President Rouhani presents an opportunity for Iran to act quickly to resolve the international community’s deep concerns over Iran’s nuclear program,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said in a statement shortly after Rouhani was sworn in. “Should this new government choose to engage substantively and seriously to meet its international obligations and find a peaceful solution to this issue, it will find a willing partner in the United States,” he said.

Carney said the US hoped the new Iranian government would “heed the will of the voters by making choices that will lead to a better life for the Iranian people.” The conciliatory tone of those comments was at odds with the tone coming from Jerusalem where Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu again urged the world not to be “taken in” by Rouhani’s perceived moderation.

“On Friday, the Iranian President said that Israel ‘has been a wound on the body of the Islamic world’,” Netanyahu said at the opening of the weekly cabinet meeting. “The President of Iran has been replaced, but the goal of the regime has not been replaced, it remains as it was. Iran’s intention is to develop a nuclear capability and nuclear weapons in order to destroy the State of Israel, and this constitutes a danger not only to us and the Middle East, but the entire world, and we are all committed to prevent this,” he said.

Rouhani, meanwhile, picked a cabinet of experienced technocrats for his new government, saying he hoped confidence-building with foreign powers would help resolve the nuclear dispute and ease international sanctions.

“The only way for interaction with Iran is dialogue on an equal footing, confidence-building and mutual respect as well as reducing antagonism and aggression,” Rouhani said in a speech after taking the oath of office in parliament.

“If you want the right response, don’t speak with Iran in the language of sanctions, speak in the language of respect.” Signaling his wish to get straight down to work, Rouhani immediately presented his list of cabinet nominees to the parliament speaker even though he has two weeks to do so.

Parliament must approve the proposed ministers before they can take office. The speaker said the assembly would review the nominees in the next week.

Rouhani picked Iran’s former ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammad Javad Zarif, as foreign minister. Zarif is a respected diplomat, well known to top U.S. officials including Vice President Joe Biden and Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel.

Any new overtures to the West would have to be approved by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has maintained a staunchly anti-Western stance since becoming Iran’s supreme leader in 1989.

Rouhani chose Bijan Zanganeh to return to the post of oil minister which he held from 1997 to 2005. Though he worked under the reformist government of former President Mohammad Khatami, Zanganeh is a non-partisan technocrat thought to enjoy the protection of Khamenei.

As oil minister, Zanganeh helped attract billions of dollars of foreign investment into Iran’s vital oil and gas sector, but that was before the imposition of stringent sanctions on the industry.

Ali Tayyeb-Nia, Rouhani’s choice to head the Ministry of Economy, has held government positions during the presidencies of reformist Khatami, centrist Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Ahmadinejad.

Tayyeb-Nia is an economist who has specialized in the study of inflation, which Rouhani said last month stood at 42 percent and which must be reduced to bring a measure of economic relief to Irananians.

Meanwhile, 76 Senators signed a letter sent to US President Barack Obama on Friday calling on the White House to toughen sanctions on Iran, despite Rouhani’s inauguration.

In the letter, the large Senate group tells the president that time for diplomacy was quickly running out.

“Iran has used negotiations in the past to stall for time,” the senators warned, noting Rouhani’s former role as the regime’s nuclear negotiator. “And in any event, Khamenei is the ultimate decision-maker for Iran’s nuclear program.” “Mr. President,” the letter continued, “we urge you to bring a renewed sense of urgency to the process. We need to understand quickly whether Tehran is at last ready to negotiate seriously. Iran needs to understand that the time for diplomacy is nearing its end.”

Last Wednesday the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly, 400-20, in favor of a punishing new sanctions package targeting what remains of Iran’s oil sector. The letter signals strong Senate support for the House bill, which is expected to come before that body for its approval in late September. Senators Robert Menendez, a Democrat and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Lindsey Graham, a Republican member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, spearheaded the letter.