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One darn nice guy is Iran’s new president, Hassan Rohani. Reports the Economist: “In written messages, Mr Rohani spoke directly to his enemies and ostensibly did so with humility and goodwill. He wrote a private letter to President Barack Obama, who sent one back. He also tweeted new year’s greetings to Jews celebrating the festival of Rosh Hashanah. Western social-media sites including Twitter and Facebook were temporarily unblocked in Iran, though users still reported problems gaining access to them.”
There’s so much excitement about Rohani that Benjamin Netanyahu struck some people as petulant and unhelpful when he called Iran’s genial new president a “wolf in sheep’s clothing.” I think Netanyahu’s point was that Iran is still Iran and Rohani is an Iranian and a product of the 1979 revolution. And the way the world and Israel look from Tehran is the way they look to Rohani because—well, what other view does he know? Even leaders with enormous power—and Rohani has far less—change their nations only at the margins; and Iran and Israel aren’t at each other’s margins.
As for the pope, the New Republic reminded us that “even as Francis’s gestures make headlines, the Church does not think in terms of news cycles or election cycles, but rather in terms of centuries.” And I would add it doesn’t think ahead in terms of centuries but behind. If something hasn’t changed in 2,000 years, why should it change at all?
