Slowly, but surely, relations between Iran and the West appear to be improving. Even though Iran's new President Hassan Rouhani did not meet U.S. President Barack Obama at the United Nations General Assembly this week as some had hoped, each man signaled a desire for a rapprochement and expressed a willingness to make that happen. Improvement is possible — relations between the United States and Iran are not good — but it will take action, not just words, to make it real.
The election of Mr. Rouhani in the Iranian presidential ballot in June surprised many. He is a conservative — and indeed looks moderate only because of the outsized presence of radicals in Iranian politics — but he recognizes the increasingly untenable position his country is in and the need to change policies to ease its isolation and end the hardships that squeeze the Iranian people.
Some changes are easy. First, he must end the hate-filled rhetoric favored by his predecessor, Mr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The talk of wiping Israel off the map, denying the Holocaust and denouncing Zionist plots at every turn contributed to a sense that Iran could not be trusted or reasoned with.