Can Rouhani or Obama Deliver on Any Deal?

Hassan Rouhani presents himself as a striking contrast with his predecessor. For the past several years, the president of Iran has held a breakfast meeting with a small group of journalists during the opening of the U.N. General Assembly. In recent years, the event had become a depressing routine. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — dressed in his trademark shabby suit — would saunter in, ramble and rant about the dangers of U.S. hegemony, deny the Holocaust and taunt his invited guests. (By the end of his tenure, there was one change; his suits got nicer.) Rouhani, by contrast, arrived punctually, elegantly attired in flowing clerical robes, and spoke intelligently and precisely about every topic discussed. His only peroration was against “Iranophobia”; he implored the media to visit Iran and present the real picture of his country to the world.