Here's one more sign of a thaw in U.S.-Iranian relations: A 2,700-year-old silver drinking cup, looted from a cave in Iran and seized by U.S. Customs officials a decade ago, was returned to Iran this week. Its value is estimated at a million dollars or more.

As Twitter heads toward its high value IPO, the attention is on its revenue and growth numbers. However, a big part of the story is the pervasiveness and influence of the messaging service. Compared with Facebook, with over a billion users, Twitter is a midsize town, with about a quarter of the audience.

The past weeks have seen a shift in Iran-U.S. relations. Instead of the usual bombast we are seeing measured, even respectful points from the two presidents. We hear that Iran’s Supreme Leader has, in his usual round-about and never entirely certain way, blessed the idea of talks. All of this is good news, but it does not mean that the problems have been solved; not by a long shot. We are witnessing the setting of the stage for talks. The talks themselves have yet to begin. There is no reason to expect that they will be quick or easy.

On a day when President Obama told delegates at the United Nations that he welcomed the opportunity posed by diplomatic overtures from Iran’s new president, Israeli diplomats in Washington sounded a very different note online, mocking the moderate cleric as scarcely different from his predecessor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Iran’s new president, Hassan Rouhani, told world leaders Tuesday that his government is prepared to “engage immediately in result-oriented” talks with the United States, but also complained about American economic sanctions and military intervention in the Middle East. In a widely anticipated speech at the United Nations General Assembly, Rouhani said that Iran and the U.S. “can arrive at a framework to manage our differences,” adding that his government has no desire to increase tensions between the two longtime adversaries.

President Barack Obama, speaking at the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, appeared to open the door for diplomatic solutions in the Syrian conflict and with Iran. In his 50-minute speech to the General Assembly, Obama pressed the United Nations and its member states to take action to resolve the Syrian conflict, saying that the "crisis in Syria and the destablization of the region goes to the heart of the broader challenges the international community must now face."

It is only in working democracies that an election would mean a real fresh start for the citizens of a country. This seems to be true about Iran. Since the election of the moderate Hassan Rouhani in June 2013, the voters inside the country and statesmen across the world have expected a relatively new Iran.