Michael Doran is a researcher specializing in international relations and a former member of President George W. Bush’s National Security Council. This week, on Sept. 23, he was asked during a public event in Washington whether Iran’s new tone really marks the dawn of a new era in the region. Doran responded by describing his own “Iranian experience,” when Bush’s team was tackling the same issue: Is Tehran really interested in peace and compromise, or is it all a ruse?

Doran told how messages started arriving from representatives in Europe and a wide range of journalists, who stubbornly attacked the Bush administration, insisting that the Iranians were serious, that they were interested in talking and resolving all differences peacefully. This was during the presidency of Mohammad Khatami. Everyone who carried these messages, Doran said, urged the administration to open a secret channel of communication with Iran because, according to their assessment, the Americans would be surprised at how far the Iranians were willing to go.

Doran recalled a meeting with President Bush, who asked how serious the missives really were and whether they could be put to the test. The most sensible proposal came from Elliot Abrams, the National Security Council’s senior director for Near East and North African Affairs. He suggested sending a countermessage to Tehran stating that if Iran did something to prove its good intentions and how serious it was, the United States would delay its condemnations of it and other moves against the country at the UN Security Council. As Doran tells it, the Iranians suddenly went silent. “We didn’t hear another word from them, or from the Europeans who tried to mediate between us.”

Could this story from the Khatami era inform us about the current Iranian move? Perhaps, but the conclusion is nonetheless the same: Don't automatically refuse to listen to conciliatory words from the Iranians, as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has, but ask them to back up their words with deeds. In the following example, however, in which Rouhani was put to his first practical test, he failed.