In its latest report on Iran’s conservative blogosphere, London-based NGO Small Media has detailed the widely differing viewpoints among conservative bloggers on the historic phone call between Hassan Rouhani and Barack Obama, and on Rouhani’s policy of “engagement” with the US.

Small Media note that one blogger, Mahmoud Mehdi Khosravi, slammed Iranians for their optimism about the Rouhani-Obama telephone conversation in his post “Thank You Obama!”. Khosravi reminds his readers of “the 100 years of enmity, courtesy of the bombs, missiles and chemical weapons granted to the Iraqi Ba’athist regime [by the West], as well as the attacks on naval ships and Iranian installations in the Persian Gulf”.

In contrast, Small Media note that blogger Omid Hosseini took a far more positive attitude to the Rouhani -Obama phone call, dubbing it a “shared victory” for the two Presidents, which also demonstrated that Iran “is not a closed political system where one person decides every issue”.

Blogger Vahid Yaminpour — whom Small Media note is “an ultra-hardline conservative blogger who vehemently opposed Rouhani’s 2013 presidential campaign” also puts a positive spin on the possibility of talks between Iran and the US, arguing that these could be of benefit to Tehran even if they “prove harmful”, since “Iran will gain experience at the national level. We should remind ourselves that the more hardship a nation experiences, the more likely it is to overcome future difficulties.”

Other conservative bloggers do not share Yaminpour’s optimism that Iran-US negotiations will benefit Iran. One blogger, who writes under the name “Fatima”, notes in a post titled “Mullahs are not from Mars!” that Rouhani’s policy of engagement with the US will destroy Iran: “We are grateful that Iran’s doors have opened to the US, allowing them to bring freedom to Iran just as they did in Iraq and Afghanistan. The cost of living will decrease, and we will become happy and prosperous!”

Click here to read the full report on Small Media’s Storify page.


About Small Media:

Small Media is a London-based non-profit that aims to increase the flow of information in closed societies by conducting research, providing training and supporting the development of technology solutions. We have had major successes through working by our ethos that small media can effect big change.