Al Monitor |�Ali Hashem: It will not be an easy second term for recently re-elected Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. With the Middle East�on fire as never before, the United States led by�Donald Trump�and Iran already at war in Iraq and Syria, flexibility is not in abundance�for the new government in Tehran. Rather it might be that the moderate president and his foreign policy team are going to be gradually�pushed in the direction of�becoming hawks. The latest stances by Rouhani and his foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, on regional�issues suggest that their�rhetoric is already changing.


�The Iranian nation has decided to be powerful,��Rouhani told reporters�in his�first remarks�after being re-elected.��Our missiles are for peace and for defense.� He added, �American officials should know that whenever we need to technically test a missile, we will do so and will not wait for their permission.�

One must ask,�what is Tehran's foreign policy going to look like in Rouhani�s second term?�Iran�s main framework for engagement with the international community remains the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, agreed to in�July�2015. The nuclear deal is Rouhani�s first-term foreign policy asset, and in his second term, he will be looking to preserve the agreement�and build on its positive elements.

�On the nuclear deal, he may have an easier job internally, as all his rivals stressed [during�the election campaign] that they too would have safeguarded the deal,��Adnan Tabatabai, CEO of the Bonn-based Center for Applied Research in Partnership with the Orient, told Al-Monitor in Tehran.

Tabatabai added, �At the same time, it will require major diplomatic skills to on the one hand push back the hostile policies of the US�while at the same time keep�relations with Europe and the rest of the P5+1 [Britain, France, Russia, China and the United States plus�Germany] intact.�


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