Former Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has succeeded in getting his message across to the West. The British newspaper The Telegraph highlighted his remarks before a gathering of former administrative officials and ran the headline:
“Former Iranian President Proposes Referendum to End War.”
This message appears to represent an attempt to reassure the West that he is prepared to exert maximum pressure on the Iranian state to push it toward backing down in the midst of a fierce war.
A Reading of Part of His Speech
1. Invoking history through controversial interpretations
Continuing the line of his previous positions—when, during the nuclear negotiations that ended with concrete being poured into parts of Iran’s nuclear facilities while sanctions continued, he made controversial claims such as:
“The lesson of Karbala is constructive engagement and negotiation with the enemy!”
He now offers us another “lesson” based on his reading of history, saying:
“The Prophet himself used to consult [the people]. He was connected to the principle of revelation, yet he consulted. He possessed all that degree of knowledge, insight, wisdom, and intellect, yet he consulted. Shouldn’t we, then, be prepared to consult our people? Let us present our plan to confront the major powers to the people…”
In making this argument, he completely disregards the party that initiated the war, as well as the fundamental principle of self-defense—a legitimate right recognized by human nature and by all religious and legal traditions.
2. The contradiction in the concept of “the people” and the majority
Elsewhere in his remarks, Rouhani claims that the small minority
“that has the loudspeakers today and makes all the noise”
does not represent the majority of Iranian society.
Here, he clearly ignores the millions who have taken to the streets in support of the Iranian system, marching nightly and continuously throughout the past six months—mobilization that helped prevent the country from descending into a security vacuum.
It appears increasingly clear that, from his perspective,
“the people”
does not include these millions of demonstrators. Rather, his definition of the people—as suggested by his political background—seems confined to the groups involved in the riots during the bloody January events, or perhaps those “drunks” from his own province of Semnan who attacked the residences of Iraqi students there, creating a rupture in the trust between the Iraqi and Iranian peoples.