Editorial of  Boston Herald– Many news accounts of Iran’s legislative elections last weekend reported a victory of “moderates and reformers” in gaining majorities for supporters of Hassan Rouhani in the national legislature and the Assembly of Experts that chooses the country’s supreme leader.
This is a mistake. There is nothing moderate or reforming about Rouhani — or his new troops.
These terms do not apply to a man who vigorously backs the Islamic Republic created in the 1979 revolution. He does not oppose his country’s support for Syrian dictator Bashar Assad, both with Iranian troops and those of its client the Hezbollah terrorist group.
Rouhani has done nothing to reform a regime that holds hundreds of political — and religious — prisoners. Amnesty International said last year Iran executed 694 prisoners in the six months ending last August, a startling bloodthirstiness that makes the rate of executions, in proportion to population, about 200 times what it is in the United States (where executions have been generally declining for 16 years).
The candidates Rouhani endorsed included two former intelligence officials who murdered dissidents and another who called for the execution of leaders of the 2009 protests against a rigged election, said Jonathan Tobin of Commentary magazine.
Iran has a Guardian Council which may veto legislation and candidates. In January, the council disqualified three-fifths of the 12,000 people seeking to run.
No regime requiring permission to be a candidate can be called moderate. Any real reform will introduce, among other things, fair elections. That is not in sight. And a “moderate” Rouhani is most definitely not.

Source: Boston Herald, 6 March 2016