"Meet Mr. Mousavi"

Gracious. Obviously intellectual. A little shy around the camera. At home (and amiably desperate for shelf space).

This introduction was clearly step 1 in an up-close-and-personal introduction of Mousavi to the western world. And even if it’s speculative to draw conclusions about the man from TIME’s slideshow, “Behind the Scenes with Mousavi,” it’s certainly a more welcome and welcoming picture of a potential Iranian president, one that makes us want to to like him (even posing before Ayatollah Khomeini) almost simply for suiting our own media vernacular.

(Companion shot here.)

(Revised 8:am EST)

(image: Mohammad Farnood)