There are good reasons for President Barack Obama to reciprocate Iranian President Hasan Rouhani’s diplomatic overtures, and reasons to be skeptical, too.

Rouhani last week published an article in The Washington Post in which the relative moderate appeared to soften his country’s traditional hard-line relations with the west, which has long worried about the direction of Iran’s nuclear program and the country’s role as a destabilizing factor in a region already fraught with blood feuds and rivalries that go back centuries.

President Obama said this week that he is instructing Secretary of State John Kerry to establish a dialogue with Iran. It’s a good first step.

Those whose jobs it is to keep tabs on the Middle East have said for years that Iran was using nuclear energy as a cover to develop a nuclear weapons program. Iranian officials have steadfastly contended that their uraniam-enrichment efforts were merely an attempt to develop nuclear energy for peaceful uses.

It is encouraging, therefore, that Rouhani indicated a willingness to put Iran’s nuclear program on the table in discussions with the six other nuclear powers.

“Nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction have no place in Iran’s security and defense doctrine, and contradict our fundamental religious and ethical convictions,” he said Tuesday during a speeach at the United Nations. “Our national interests make it imperative that we remove any and all reasonable concerns about Iran’s peaceful nuclear program.”

Rouhani seems to be offering the international equivalent of emptying Iran’s pockets to show that it’s not concealing anything sinister.

That’s an offer the world can accept, even though Rouhani doesn’t control his nation’s nuclear program, which is under the direction of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

As the New York Times pointed out in an article on Tuesday, the Ayatollah is an unpredicable force who has been down this road before, only to pull the magic carpet out from under the feet of others who tried to engage the west.

We must be mindful of that happening again, while also leaving open the possibility that there might be some valid reasons while Iran would want to change course.

The most immediate, and obvious, is to achieve a lessening of U.S. sanctions in exchange for showing progress at the nuclear table. Analysts say the sanctions cost the Iranian economy $26 billion in oil revenues last year and caused inflation to spike. Skeptics, however, caution that Iran might use the additional revenue from reducing sanctions to continue funding its quest for nuclear weapons. They also suggest that Iran is simply trying to buy time in order to accomplish that same goal.

Which is why Obama, in his own speech to the U.N., was right to insist that Iran do more than talk.

“Conciliatory words will have to be matched by actions that are transparent and verifiable,” the president said.

Engaging Iran could yield other benefits that are in our interests, too. A less isolated Iran might mean a more stable Middle East, and Iran is an ally of Syria and other countries in the region where the U.S. could use some help. And, finally, Rouhani also spoke about the need for countries to work together against extremist groups that, he said, pose the greatest threat to the Middle East. Iran could be a powerful ally in that respect.

We also must acknowledge that rebuffing Iran’s overtures could send the country running in the direction of those extremists elements, and that would be bad for everybody.

Newsletter