The aggressive rhetoric of Clinton’s successor, George W. Bush, who called Iran part of an “axis of evil” prior to the US-led invasion of Iraq, made Khamenei apprehensive, and he endorsed an initiative for a dialogue with the Americans in 2003. The Bush administration, in thrall to the idea of regime change, ignored this initiative and rejected the “Big Deal” on nuclear energy negotiated with the EU-3 in Paris in November 2004 by Rouhani, who was then Khamenei’s representative and Chairman of Iran’s National Security Council.