In 2013, Hassan Rouhani was elected president of Iran, succeeding the blunt revolutionary Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who loved to provoke Western sensibilities. To the Obama administration, the smiling cleric Rouhani was destined to bring “change” to Iran, and the American press hailed him as a “moderate” who favored liberalization. He was, of course, nothing of the sort, as Isaac Schorr writes:

To Rouhani, “Israel is the great Zionist Satan” that “can never feel that it is in a safe place,” and “the beautiful cry of ‘Death to America’ unites” his country. In a 2004 speech, Rouhani boasted that nuclear negotiations he was holding with Britain, France, and Germany bought time that allowed engineers to install “equipment in parts of the [nuclear conversion] facility in Isfahan.”

This much could be determined from Rouhani’s words alone, but his actions speak far more loudly. Not only has Iran, under his watch, continued to export terror, war, and slaughter throughout the Middle East, but Rouhani’s government has also brutalized its own population. Schorr cites a recent report by Amnesty International detailing the treatment of those who participated in last year’s protests:

During his original campaign in 2013, Rouhani ran on a platform of freeing political prisoners and curbing the power of the morality police. . . . During and after the protests, [however], thousands of Iranians were arrested by security forces—in the vast majority of cases, for merely showing up to demonstrations. . . . Children as young as ten years old were taken into custody.

Many of those arrested disappeared for weeks and even months. Family members who inquired as to their status were often “subjected to harassment [and] intimidation.” . . . Torture was used not only to force the “confessions” of individuals’ unlawful behavior, “but also about their alleged associations with opposition groups outside Iran.” Among the methods used by authorities to elicit such confessions were beatings, prolonged stays in solitary confinement, stress positions and suspension, electric shocks, mock executions, and sexual violence and humiliation, including “forced nakedness, invasive body searches intended to humiliate the victims, sustained sexual verbal abuse, pepper spraying the genital area, and administering electric shocks to the testicles.”

Considering the current state of Israel-Arab relations, Ghaith al-Omari writes

First and foremost, no ceasefire will be possible without the release of Israeli hostages and commitments to disarm Hamas and remove it from power. The final say on these matters rests with Hamas commanders on the ground in Gaza, who have been largely impervious to foreign pressure so far. At minimum, however, the United States should insist that Qatari and Egyptian mediators push Hamas’s external leadership to accept these conditions publicly, which could increase pressure on the group’s Gaza leadership.

Washington should also demand a clear, public position from key Arab states regarding disarmament. The Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas endorsed this position in a June letter to Saudi Arabia and France, giving Arab states Palestinian cover for endorsing it themselves.

Some Arab states have already indicated a willingness to play a significant role, but they will have little incentive to commit resources and personnel to Gaza unless Israel (1) provides guarantees that it will not occupy the Strip indefinitely, and (2) removes its veto on a PA role in Gaza’s future, even if only symbolic at first. Arab officials are also seeking assurances that any role they play in Gaza will be in the context of a wider effort to reach a two-state solution.

On the other hand, Washington must remain mindful that current conditions between Israel and the Palestinians are not remotely conducive to . . . implementing a two-state solution.