Nov 19, 2015

The weekly paper of Iran’s Hezbollah (Ansar-e Hezbollah) argued that President Hassan Rouhani will be the first one-term president in the history of the Islamic Republic of Iran. While Iran’s hard-liners have still not grown accustomed to being out of power since the eight years of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s presidency, the article raises valid points about the administration’s stumbling regional diplomacy and criticism over Rouhani’s tight-knight inner circle.

Yalasarat al-Hussein, the news site of Ansar-e Hezbollah, wrote that Rouhani being a one-term president is both a “wish and a prediction.” The article jokingly said that they hope writing this would not cause them to be closed down by Rouhani’s Culture Ministry. The concern is not out of place, as a number of conservative newspapers have been temporarily suspended by the Rouhani administration.

According to the article, Rouhani has not been able to satisfy either base in Iranian politics, neither the religious nor what the article refers to derisively as the “worldly,” people who care about their material well-being rather than their spiritual well-being. The article presumes that the “materialistic base” in the country is the one who voted for Rouhani in June 2013.

It continued by saying that rents as well as the cost of food, gasoline, natural gas and utilities have increased under Rouhani's presidency, and that there are still no signs of when the international sanctions will be removed. The latest reports state that in accordance with the nuclear deal and Iran’s compliance in reducing its nuclear activities, banking and oil sanctions will be removed Jan. 12, approximately a month later than some analysts had previously expected.

Not only has the Rouhani administration failed to improve the economy, but they have also failed in regional relations, particularly with neighboring Arab countries in the Persian Gulf, the article wrote. Yalasarat references a number of public embarrassments for the administration, such as Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir’s repeated refusals to meet with Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, the October arrests of Iranian female teachers in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain expelling the Iranian envoy and recalling its own ambassador from Iran.