The Obama administration has bought into what my colleague at the Council on Foreign Relations, Ray Takeyh, calls the “Rouhani narrative,” according to which Iranian President Hasan Rouhani is a reformer, Iran is ripe for change and reform, and progress is at hand. As in the Cold War days when we were told we needed to compromise to “help the reformers in the Kremlin,” so today we must not be too tough in negotiations lest we weaken Rouhani and his reformist brethren.

But the reforms in Iran are imaginary, making Rouhani either complicit in the deception or unable to make any changes.

As the International Campaign for Human Rights in Iran reported on Oct. 28: “In the past three days alone, the judiciary has banned the reformist daily Bahar, sentenced the prominent actress Pegah Ahangarani to 18 months in prison, and put to death 18 individuals who are ethnic minorities.”

According to AFP, “An Iranian court has sentenced filmmaker and actress Pegah Ahangarani to 18 months in prison, her mother told the Iranian Students’ News Agency Monday, apparently for her social activities, political comments and interviews with foreign media.”

Read the article in full at Israel Hayom