Provided a second term not by the people but the ruling elite, Hassan Rouhani is merely another tear of the cloth known as the Islamic Republic of Iran. He provided the grounds needed for Tehran to go “ahead with multiple ballistic missile tests, fired rockets close to American warships in international waters, revealed a new missile bunker, assumed an intransigent posture with respect to a full accounting of past nuclear research, sanctioned the capture of American sailors and the harassing of our ships in the Gulf, and dispatched Iranian agents to Germany in search of nuclear technology,” as explained by the Financial Times.

There are also signs of Rouhani’s initiatives inflicting permanent damage to the mullahs’ rule. Through the course of his campaign trail Rouhani raised the stakes of his ousting by the senior ruling clerics, unveiling secrets of the regime’s dark history and pledges he obviously has no intention, let alone ability, to meet.

Rouhani’s practices have already sidelined the regime’s higher ranks, and considering the rigged nature of Iran’s voter turnout numbers, he is on course to disappoint the dismal few who actually did vote for him. As seen in the past 38 years, the road ahead with Rouhani as Iran’s president -- a puppet of Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei -- will prove the fact that reform from within in Iran is nothing but a hoax.

Rouhani is known to be the first Iranian regime official to openly call for public executions in order to inflict a graver influence on the general public and impose a certain climate of fear to quell dissent.

“Conspirators should be hanged in Friday prayers for people to see them and to have more of an impact,” he said on July 14th, 1980.

At an “election” rally Rouhani went as far as emphasizing that “the people will say no to those who over the course of 38 years only executed and jailed.” This is considered a clear reference to Ebrahim Raisi, his then conservative rival known for his notorious role in the 1988 massacre of over 30,000 political prisoners across the country.

While Raisi played a leading part, Rouhani, then a member of the regime’s so-called parliament, was fully informed of the atrocities in the regime’s dungeons and remained through the course, and to this day. Ever since, the Iranian regime has portrayed the issue as a taboo and no-man’s land in order to maintain a lid on it.

And yet a major campaign is ongoing inside the country and abroad, with brave activists rising to the challenge and demanding answers about the regime’s atrocities in general, especially the executions of the entire 1980s.

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Rouhani also served as Iran’s secretary of the Supreme National Security Council for decades and orchestrated the horrific crackdown of the 1999 student uprising, a prelude of the 2009 nationwide outburst. Rouhani has also boasted how he deceived the European Troika in in the 2003 nuclear talks, providing Iran the opportunity to maintain their nuclear program, only to expel UN inspectors in 2005 and relaunch the regime’s nuclear weapons drive with firebrand Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as president.

More recently, Rouhani is also supervising the regime’s ongoing need to maintain a certain degree of domestic crackdown. Over 3,000 people were sent to the gallows during Rouhani’s first term, and ironically, his minister of justice has been none other than Mostafa Pourmohammadi, another member in the four-man commission overseeing the 1988 massacre.

While Rouhani in the elections surprisingly warned the Revolutionary Guards not to interfere in the regime’s so-called election process, his first term provided the platform of the Guards expanded their reach across the region. Rouhani’s remarks just two days after the election façade are quite interesting.

He “pledged the mullahs’ regime will continue their warmongering in the Middle East, adding they are on the ground in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon... ‘Iran has and will support these efforts through its diplomats and military advisors’,” he said according to a statement released by Iranian opposition National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI).

Considering the fact that Rouhani lacks the ability or will to realize any change in Tehran’s foundations and conduct, measures are now needed to correctly confront the mullah’s flagrant human rights violations, expanding ballistic missile program, and support for terrorism, extremism and meddling in other states.

The recent Arab Islamic American Summit sent such a necessary message to this regime.

Heshmat Alavi is a political and rights activist. His writing focuses on Iran, ranging from human rights violations, social crackdown, the regime’s support for terrorism and meddling in foreign countries, and the controversial nuclear program.

He tweets at @HeshmatAlavi & blogs at IranCommentary