http://lobelog.com/iran-nuclear-deal-one-time-event-or-breakthrough/#more-34036

Iran Nuclear Deal: One-time Event or Breakthrough?

by John Limbert
Tehran and Washington have apparently hired the same speechwriter to com­pose their public statements about the state of Iranian nuclear deal (the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action or JCPOA). In both capitals the proclaimed view is identical: the nuclear agreement is only a one-off event and has no larger implica­tions for U.S.-Iranian relations; there has been no break in the 35-year cycle of hostility between the two countries; the devil remains the devil, even if we had to make a deal with it; and the other side remains devious, domineering, and untrust­worthy and has not abandoned its long-time goal of doing (us) mischief.
There is even competition to outdo the other side in insisting that, because of this hostility, the JCPOA will remain a limited, unique episode. In his recent Iranian New Year’s message, Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei denounced American “tricks” such as President Obama’s Persian New Year’s mes­sage to the Iranian people and his setting up a ceremonial Iranian haft-seen (tabletop arrangement of seven symbolic items) at the White House. He continued, “I am empha­sizing my point about the enemy; I mean the United States.” The nuclear deal, he insisted, has not changed that reality.
For its part, the U.S. has taken the same public attitude. President Obama’s National Security Advisor Susan Rice recently told The Atlantic reporter Jeff Goldberg:

The Iran deal was never primarily about trying to open a new era of rela­tions between the U.S. and Iran. The aim was simply to make a danger­ous country less dangerous. No one had any expectation that Iran would be a more benign actor.

The editorialists at Tehran’s conservative newspaper Keyhan could not resist calling Rice’s statement “only a small part of the increasing anti-Iranian rhetoric of the American officials in recent months.”
We get the point: both parties agree the U.S. and Iran were not friends, are not friends, and are not going to be friends. In Tehran, America is still the “great Satan” and “world arrogance.” In Washington, Iran remains the “world’s number-one sponsor of terrorism” with hegemonic ambitions to dominate the region. In her comments, Rice barely avoided saying “malign,” the U.S. military’s favorite adjective for Iranian actions.http://lobelog.com/iran-nuclear-deal-one-time-event-or-breakthrough/#more-34036