"Rohani’s Inauguration & America’s Strategic Suicide in the Middle East"

"...But the focus on them suggests that Western elites still look for Tehran to accommodate the West’s nuclear demands—above all, by compromising Iran’s right, as a sovereign state and signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, to enrich uranium indigenously under safeguards.  This motivates them to interpret Rouhani’s election as evidence of Iranians’ growing weariness with sanctions and, by extension, with their government’s policies that prompt escalating international pressure on Iran’s economy.        If this assessment shapes Western policy toward Tehran after Rouhani’s inauguration, America and its European partners will not only squander yet another chance to realign relations with Iran.  They will also ensure further and far more precipitous erosion of their standing and influence in the Middle East. ..."