The man known to the world as Tehran’s nuclear negotiator, Hassan Rowhani, was on Iranian TV this weekend, officially announcing his candidacy for president.

For the casual Iran watcher, Mr. Rowhani sounds like a plausible contender in the presidential race, which the Guardians Council, responsible for such things, scheduled for June 19. A Google search will return results with his name as often as any Iranian leader.

His current job is to sell to Europeans and others who want to believe it the notion that Iran means merely to use its nuclear powers for peaceful purposes. But as this exchange on Iranian TV shows, Mr. Rowhani knows this means very little inside Iran:

Interviewer: Your chances in the elections depend upon the outcome of the Iranian nuclear case. If it is positive, then it will positively influence public opinion, then you will stand. Otherwise, you will not do so. Where do you stand?

Mr. Rowhani: First of all, your analysis is not correct. The outcome of the nuclear case is positive. In fact, it is too positive. However, my candidacy is not linked to the nuclear case. Basically, I am waiting to see the political lineup in this country with regard to this matter. Unfortunately, the lineup is not clear yet. Factions have not made a final decision yet.”

Deftly changing the subject, Mr. Rowhani is well aware of the fact that the 800-pound gorilla, Iran’s second strongest man, Hashemi Rafsanjani, has not yet entered the ring. If he does, all other candidacies are moot.

“The nuclear issue is far from the average citizen’s mind,” the director of Israel Radio’s Farsi service, Menashe Amir, tells me. Iranians are not very well-versed in the diplomatic nuances and care little about them. On nuclear weapons, at least, there is no internal dissent. “All political factions want Iran to have the bomb,” Mr. Amir says.

Mr. Rowhani is right, however, that diplomacy is going well. As America attempts to convince the world to consider economic sanctions, Europeans rush to expand business dealings with Iran. Currently, the French auto maker Renault merely uses its Iranian-based plants for manufacturing cars for internal consumption. But as Reuel Marc Gerecht reported in the Weekly Standard, the company, in which the French government is an influential minority shareholder, has recently signed an agreement to build additional factories for export to the entire Middle East and Central Asia.

Europeans, meanwhile, display complete confidence. “Germany has proved together with France and Great Britain that such conflicts [like Iran’s nukes] are diplomatically solvable,” Chancellor Schroeder told Stern magazine over the weekend, and the Iranian news agency IRNA was happy to quote his upbeat assessment.

Tehran has got the Europeans’ number. As an opening gambit toward the next round of talks later this month, and on the eve of an IAEA visit, Mr. Rowhani complains that once more, Iran has been cheated somehow.

“As part of their commitments, the Europeans were supposed to support Iran’s membership in the World Trade Organization, which they did,” he said in the TV interview. But why is Iran still out? “We feel the Europeans did not support Iran enough. They have to get Iran to become a member.”

If hard delivery is the criteria, however, Europeans might ask about Iran’s promises. Iran promised joining, for example, and later even signed the additional protocol to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which allows for more intrusive inspections. For the IAEA to actually apply such measures, however, the Parliament, known as the Majlis, has to ratify the protocol. So far, the issue has not even been presented for a vote, which is bound to fail anyway.

The three European powers are not about to seriously challenge Iran on this – or perhaps not even on the latest boasting over the weekend by the director of the Ifsahan nuclear plant, Mansour Habashizadeh, that Iran can now produce zirconium cladding for uranium rods. This would mean admitting their soft diplomatic approach has failed.

While supporting European efforts, Washington is hinting about its hope for regime change from within Iran. Even such internal revolution, however, will not change the dynamics of the fast-paced Iranian race to become a nuclear power.

Once the inauguration is over, the Bush administration must quickly present a coherent policy that would include the threat of a military strike. Iranians must realize that when Mr. Rowhani talks about “too positive” nuclear news, this might in fact have negative consequences.

Mr. Avni covers the United Nations for The New York Sun. He can be reached at bavni@nysun.com.