Iranian President-elect Hassan Rouhani waves at a news conference in Tehran on Monday, June 17. Rouhani, a cleric and moderate politician, took more than 50% of the vote after campaigning on a platform of "hope and prudence," appealing to both traditional conservatives and reform-minded voters. 
Supporters of Rouhani's celebrate his victory in downtown Tehran on Saturday, June 15. 
Rouhani leaves a polling station after voting in Tehran on Friday, June 14. About 50 million Iranian voters were eligible to go to the polls to select a new president from a field of six candidates. 
Iranian men wait to vote at a polling station at the Massoumeh shrine in the holy city of Qom, south of Tehran, during presidential elections on June 14. 
A girl watches a woman cast her ballot on June 14. 
Iranian clergymen wait in line to vote at a polling station at the Massoumeh shrine on June 14. 
A woman checks out her ballot before voting in Iran's presidential elections at a Tehran polling station on June 14. 
Women wait in line to vote at a shrine in Qom on June 14. 
Voters fill out paper ballots in Tehran on June 14. 
A woman casts her ballot during the Iranian presidential elections in Shahr-e-Rey on June 14. 
Former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani votes in the Jamaran mosque in Tehran on June 14. 
Presidential candidate Hassan Rouhani casts his vote in Tehran on June 14. 
Youths ride past campaign posters in downtown Tehran on Thursday, June 13, a day ahead of the country's presidential election. 
Supporters of top nuclear negotiator and conservative presidential candidate Saeed Jalili wave national flags during his campaign rally at Heydarnia stadium in Tehran on Wednesday, June 12. 
A supporter of Hassan Rouhani, moderate presidential candidate and former top nuclear negotiator, works on her laptop in one of his campaign offices in Tehran on Tuesday, June 11. 
Iranian supporters of former vice president and reformist presidential candidate Mohammad Reza Aref shout slogans during his campaign rally in Tehran on Monday, June 10. Later on Monday he announced his decision to drop out of the race. Hours earlier, another candidate, Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel, also said he was out. 
A man holds a portrait of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi, who has been under house arrest since February 2011, during a campaign rally for Aref in Tehran on June 10. 
A supporter of Iranian presidential candidate Mohsen Rezaei, Iran's top commander during the war with Iraq, holds a blue flag bearing his portrait during a rally in Tehran on June 10. 
An Aref supporter checks her mobile phone surrounded by campaign posters after the June 10 rally in Tehran. 
Pilgrims and clergymen walk across the courtyard of the Masoumeh holy shrine in the religious Shiite Muslim city of Qom on Sunday, June 9. Iran's powerful bazaar merchants and Shiite clergy spearheaded the 1979 Islamic revolution, but their role in the country's political scene has waned over the years, analysts say. 
An Iranian clergyman walks past campaign posters on June 9 in Qom, south of the capital city of Tehran. 
Iranians read the headlines on the front pages of newspapers unveiling the approved presidential candidates on May 22 in Tehran. 
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- David Rothkopf: Some say election of Iran's Rouhani won't change anything -- they're wrong
- He says Khameni may really call shots, but vote for moderate changes Mideast tone, optics
- He says it showed Iranians favored Rouhani, a former nuke negotiator, reject Ahmadinejad
- Rothkopf: U.S. should seek reachable goals with Rouhani aimed at stopping Iran nuke program
Editor's note: David Rothkopf writes regularly for CNN.com. He is CEO and editor-at-large of the FP Group, publishers of Foreign Policy magazine, and a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Follow him on Twitter.
(CNN) -- It would be easy to dismiss Friday's election of Hassan Rouhani as president of Iran as little more than a sham -- a rigged election that changes nothing. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei still calls the shots in Tehran.
The election won't stop Iran's nuclear program or end Iran's years of enmity with Israel or the United States. Nor will it reverse Iran's support for Syria's brutal regime.
It would be easy to shrug off the election, like Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has effectively done.
But it would be wrong.
While the election did not change Iran's real power structure and was not an exercise in democracy -- the theocratic backroom bosses blocked more than 700 aspiring candidates from the ballots -- it has already changed the calculus of the Middle East in a number of important, if subtle, ways. It was not a political sea-change as much as a shift in tone and optics. But such a shift may have very significant consequences.
Perhaps most importantly, the election has enabled Iran to shrug off President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Ahmadinejad, who combined the hateful ignorance of being a Holocaust denier with the governing incompetence that has left his country in an economic shambles, will not be missed. Indeed, this week began with reports that the outgoing president is now facing criminal charges in his own country where his popularity, thanks largely to rampant inflation and high unemployment, is at rock bottom.
Instead of Mahmoud the Mockable, Iran has in an instant bought itself greater credibility and a moment to demonstrate whether real change there is possible. While the election denied the people the real choice they deserved, voters sent an unmistakable message with the strong first-ballot victory they gave Dr. Rouhani, a former Iranian nuclear negotiator known for his pragmatic streak. They rejected six other more hard-line candidates, including those who were seen to be favored by Khamenei.
The election has reminded the world that the Iranian people are not easily reduced to a simplistic identity as members of "the axis of evil." The country has a diverse populous with a rich history of intense national debate, despite decades of autocratic rule.
When the West propped up a corrupt and abusive Shah, an Islamic revolution was the result. More recently, as the Islamic leadership has caused great hardship in Iran, we have seen the stirrings of opposition that arose most dramatically in the Green Revolution that followed Ahmadinejad's re-election in 2009.
The government is oppressively heavy-handed, the world's leading state sponsor of terrorism, and actively trying to spread its influence throughout the Middle East, but, the election reminded us the people of Iran contain many views, some of which, despite the best efforts of the regime, remain very close to the surface.
Nasr: U.S. must make first move on Iran 
Who is Iran's president elect? 
Iran's president-elect vows 'moderation' In his first press conference, Rouhani espoused views that suggested that he would seek to moderate Iran's international stance. While strongly defending the country's right to its nuclear program, he underscored a desire to "enhance mutual trust" with the rest of the world. He spoke of enhancing the "transparency" of the nuclear program and specifically of seeking better relations with neighbors in the Persian Gulf region.
And, not surprisingly, he focused on doing what he could to fix the spluttering Iranian economy -- the issue that more than any other will determine how he fares when he assumes his role in August.
Rouhani's press conference offered other shreds of hope. He offered the possibility of improved relations with both the U.S. and the UK, saying of the former "the issue of relations between Iran and America is a complicated and difficult issue. It is an old wound that needs to be healed."
It would be naïve to assume that this election or a more moderate tilt by a new president who will not actually be running the country signals a sea-change. But simply by virtue of his stance, he has effectively hit the pause button on the U.S.-Iran stand-off on nukes. A confrontation or attack in the near-term seems much less likely. At the same time, the international community will inevitably test his willingness to seek better relations.
The U.S. should participate in that effort, identifying achievable near-term goals that might show progress toward stopping the Iranian nuclear program, or assistance in finding a solution in Syria, while underscoring to Rouhani that his actions will be the only meaningful metric by which he will be judged.
Perhaps this election signifies only a superficial or temporary change. But given the stakes, it must also be seen as a cautiously encouraging one. One of the world's most dangerous situations is not, at this moment, hurtling irreversibly toward conflict. There is, for all but the most cynical, a glimmer of hope for a slight opening.
That not only resets the clock, it actually creates the opportunity for something like progress. More importantly, it reminds us that however repressive or dangerous Iran's autocratic clerics may be, the people of the country should not reflexively be seen as the enemies of the West or of peace.
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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of David Rothkopf.
