It was purported to be Masoud Pezeshkian’s second of crowning glory. As an alternative, it will likely be remembered for a dramatic assassination that put Iran on a conflict footing.
It was July 30, and scores of international dignitaries had gathered in Iran’s parliament to attend the swearing-in of Pezeshkian, the Islamic republic’s first reformist president in twenty years. The 69-year-old had just lately gained a snap election, marked by guarantees to resolve Tehran’s long-running nuclear stand-off with the US and European powers within the hope of securing sanctions reduction.
“I can’t relaxation till these unjust sanctions are lifted,” Pezeshkian instructed the viewers, which included officers from the EU, China, Russia and Arab states. “We need to normalise our financial relations with the world.”
However simply hours later, an explosion ripped via a state-run residence. Inside was one of many friends who had flown in for the inauguration — Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s political chief, who was killed. The assault was clearly a focused one. Surprised by a humiliating assault on the coronary heart of the republic, Iranian officers blamed Israel and vowed revenge.
The assassination has put the Center East in a state of anxious limbo. Many surprise what kind retaliation would possibly take, amid fears the area is susceptible to sliding in the direction of a full-blown battle.
It additionally underscores the large challenges Pezeshkian faces if he’s to fulfill his election pledges. His possibilities of success are beholden to the complexities of politics inside the theocratic system, geopolitics and the simmering hostilities with Israel.
“After I heard about Haniyeh’s killing, I assumed to myself what a tough and painful path lies forward for Pezeshkian,” says Mohammad-Sadegh Javadi-Hesar, a reformist politician. “Israel challenged him on his foremost promise to have interaction with the world by attempting to pull him right into a conflict. A few of Pezeshkian’s opponents at residence additionally didn’t thoughts seeing his untimely failure.”
Even earlier than Haniyeh’s assassination, many inside and outdoors the republic, sceptical about dramatic shifts in home or international coverage, believed the chances have been stacked in opposition to Pezeshkian.
Hardliners, who’re ideologically against engagement with the US, have lately additional cemented their maintain on energy, whereas reformist politicians have been pushed ever extra to the margins.
Relations with the west have additionally deteriorated as Tehran has expanded its nuclear programme, bought drones to Russia that it utilized in its conflict in Ukraine, cracked down on dissent, arrested international and twin nationals and been accused of focusing on residents in Europe.
However the demise of President Ebrahim Raisi, a hardline cleric, in a helicopter crash in Could offered an sudden alternative for the reformists to make a comeback. After being pressured to name an emergency election, the authorities shocked many by approving Pezeshkian’s candidacy for the presidency. Disillusioned reformist politicians — who stay loyal to the system however imagine it has to adapt to fulfill the aspirations of a fast-changing society — have been abruptly energised and rallied round his bid. He went on to beat the ultra-hardliner Saeed Jalili in a run-off.
Many suspect that the regime’s management has recognised that it has little selection however to modify course if it desires to venture social and political stability at a vital juncture. Reform-minded politicians additionally know that it’s prone to be their final likelihood in energy, as they’ll discover it exhausting to ever regain the belief of voters once more in the event that they fail.
“A major shift is quietly occurring, with a rising consensus round Pezeshkian. It’s not too late for this alteration; we aren’t but on the level of no return,” says Saeed Laylaz, a political analyst. “[Reformist] politicians who as soon as believed the Islamic republic was getting ready to collapse are actually vying for senior positions.”
The stakes have hardly ever been greater. Along with tensions triggered by the Israel-Hamas conflict, Pezeshkian is taking the helm at a degree when the republic is making ready for a succession — Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is 85 years outdated. Now 45 years outdated, Iran’s theocratic system is dealing with a legitimacy disaster as its well-liked assist plummets, whereas the regime is affected by factionalism. And the brand new president can have restricted instruments at his disposal. He inherits a damaged financial system, choked by sanctions; key coverage selections need to be accepted by Khamenei.
Ought to Pezeshkian fail, Iran will proceed on what seems to be an inevitable collision course with the west over its nuclear actions; financial woes will proceed to fester and home frustrations will intensify.
“Pezeshkian is the final stronghold . . . inside the present construction. If the partitions of Pezeshkian’s authorities collapse, your entire basis will endure, and everybody can be affected,” Bijan Abdolkarimi, a philosophy professor, instructed Iranian media final month. “It doesn’t matter in case you are a reformist or a hardliner; the tsunami of failure will sweep everybody away.”
But when he’s profitable, his presidency might go some option to lowering each home and international tensions. They’ve been simmering since 2018 when then US President Donald Trump withdrew from the nuclear accord Tehran had signed with world powers and mounted a “most stress” marketing campaign in opposition to the republic.
“It’s a vital four-year interval,” says Vali Nasr, professor of worldwide affairs and Center East research at Johns Hopkins College of Superior Worldwide Research. “The election final result is barely a reprieve. Pezeshkian’s election alone is just not going to vary coverage or get us to a distinct place — it’s the method that can decide whether or not it may well.”
A lot of what Pezeshkian is ready to accomplish — or not — will depend upon different highly effective actors inside the theocratic system, in addition to the actions of western states which have lengthy since misplaced persistence with the regime’s machinations and have little religion in its capacity to vary.
The president can affect insurance policies and path: he chairs key our bodies together with the Supreme Nationwide Safety Council and oversees the financial system. The president may also form the tone of presidency, each domestically and in its engagement with the surface world.
However it’s Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guards who decide Iran’s international coverage — together with the way it retaliates for the assassination of Haniyeh. Pezeshkian can be prone to face resistance from hardliners at residence, as he tries to fulfil his election pledges to ease social restrictions, together with eradicating web filtering and never compelling girls to put on the hijab in public.
“There are nonetheless many threats, together with radicalism from each hardliners and reformists,” says Laylaz.
A coronary heart surgeon who served as well being minister twenty years in the past and was a parliamentarian for 4 phrases, Pezeshkian was lengthy seen as a mid-ranking reformist with a aptitude for populist language. In a system tainted with corruption, he had the fame of getting clear monetary information and for reciting non secular books.
Reformist politicians take solace from the truth that the president seems to have the belief and backing of Khamenei, who has praised Pezeshkian and warned of the necessity for unity amongst opposing factions. “His victory is a victory for all of us,” Khamenei stated final month. “On necessary nationwide points, a unified voice needs to be heard from the nation.”
The calculation of those that imagine that Pezeshkian will be capable of ship a level of change relies on the assumption that Khamenei himself has concluded it’s within the regime’s pursuits to vary tack.
“The republic has proven pragmatism and is adjusting to fulfill new public calls for,” says a regime insider. “The turning level on this shift was this election.”
For his half, Pezeshkian has repeatedly spoken of his obedience to the supreme chief, projected his religiosity and fulfilled his promise to determine a nationwide unity authorities that features conservatives in addition to reformists. A reformist president main a average authorities, he seeks consensus quite than radical change, marking a brand new chapter in Iranian politics, analysts say.
If the idea that Khamenei is making an attempt to vary path is appropriate, it alerts an abrupt reset. When Raisi was elected in 2021, he was extensively perceived to be Khamenei’s protégé and a frontrunner to succeed him as supreme chief despite the fact that his election was marred by a then record-low turnout of 48.8 per cent as many citizens believed the end result was pre-ordained.
At the moment, the assumption was that Khamenei had concluded that if loyalists have been in management, it might finish the perpetual infighting inside the regime and guarantee a steady political surroundings to plan for succession.
However his authorities was both unwilling or unable to revive the nuclear deal, generally known as JCPOA, with the west, regardless of greater than two years of tortuous oblique talks with the Biden administration.
In the meantime, Iran’s financial malaise deepened and the hole between the management and unusual Iranians widened. Since Trump imposed waves of crippling sanctions in 2018, inflation has soared from single digits to about 40 per cent.
And in September 2022, one of many worst anti-regime protests in many years erupted following the demise of Mahsa Amini in police custody; the 22-year-old was arrested for carrying her hijab “improperly”. The general public anger rattled the regime to its core, whereas the scars of a brutal crackdown linger.
Some analysts imagine the true cause Pezeshkian’s candidacy was accepted was to lure extra voters to the polls and reverse a pattern of record-low turnouts at elections. Even so, turnout within the first spherical slumped to 39.9 per cent earlier than recovering to shut to 50 per cent when it was a straight combat between Pezeshkian and Jalili, doubtless stoked by voters’ fears of what a hardliner victory would carry.
Pezeshkian was by no means the ruling system’s favoured candidate – some imagine his victory represented a miscalculation by the management. However he was thought of to be an appropriate face of the reformist motion — a loyalist who may very well be trusted to not rock the boat ought to he win.
The regime insider says the embarrassingly low turnout within the first spherical was a “wake-up name” for the management. “A low turnout might embolden folks to behave in opposition to the political system and probably set off road protests,” the insider says. “Folks step again after they understand the regime as highly effective, but when they sense weak spot, they may resist.”
An rising variety of Iranians have come to see elections as a second for silent protest. Many city younger Iranians immediately communicate of wanting regime change, not change from inside.
The regime insider believes the hole has “been considerably repaired” after Pezeshkian’s victory. “The Islamic republic wants public assist greater than ever as oil income has declined,” he says. “Beforehand, when Iran might promote oil, public assist was much less vital. Now, with an financial system depending on tax assortment, public assist is essential. Iranian leaders should take heed to the folks greater than earlier than.”
It’s this reasoning that makes some Iranians imagine Khamenei is able to negotiate with the west on the nuclear disaster, the idea being that he has taken the pragmatic view that Iran wants sanctions reduction to alleviate its financial issues and home tensions.
Uppermost in his thoughts is making certain political and social stability forward of the eventual succession course of, commentators say, and, if Raisi’s presidency did not revive the financial system, Khamenei is prepared to gamble on one other route.
“Earlier than you even get to the reply to the query of who’s going to be his successor, you must additionally suppose beneath what situations will that succession occur?” says Nasr. “In a situation the place the vast majority of the Iranians are completely disaffected, Iran is on the warpath with the USA, and its home financial system is collapsing?”
One of many key challenges dealing with the Islamic republic is negotiate a brand new nuclear settlement with the US, European powers, Russia and China, the signatories of the 2015 deal. The nuclear and political scene has modified dramatically because the atomic accord was finalised. Iran’s nuclear advances have been huge; Russia has invaded Ukraine with Tehran siding firmly with Moscow.
The Israel-Hamas battle has introduced the Islamic republic and the Jewish state near direct confrontation on a number of events, the newest of which has been the killing of Haniyeh.
The regime insider says that the supreme chief has “clarified that Iran wants sanctions reduction”. However, he provides, “this needs to be achieved in a dignified method, quite than showing as a give up,” including that Iran would insist on retaining its nuclear enrichment and analysis capacities.
Beneath the earlier deal, Iran agreed to cap its uranium enrichment to three.67 per cent purity in return for sanctions reduction. However for greater than three years, Iran has been enriching at 60 per cent — which is approaching weapons grade. It’s now regarded by western governments as a nuclear threshold state, with the capability to provide ample fissile materials required to provide a nuclear bomb inside about two weeks, specialists say.
The primary clauses within the 2015 accord expire subsequent 12 months; western diplomats imagine it would require a brand new settlement to resolve the disaster.
The Biden administration is prone to have little urge for food, or bandwidth, for critical negotiations because it gears up for elections, significantly because the Israel-Hamas conflict continues, with Iran supporting regional militants from Hizbollah in Lebanon to the Houthis in Yemen. A senior US official says that whereas Pezeskhian “would possibly change the tenor of how Iran talks about partaking with the west or partaking on human rights at residence, finally, closing selections on the finish of the day are lower than him”.
“We nonetheless have very important considerations about Iran’s behaviour; its continued assist for terrorism; its continued assist for proxies within the Center East, its continued assist for Russia . . . [its] crackdown on human rights at residence, its nuclear escalations.”
A Trump victory in November would add one other layer of complication. However the regime insider says Tehran can be prepared to barter with Trump if he re-enters the White Home, hoping that his transactional type might create a gap for a deal even when he’s surrounded by Iran hawks.
Ali Vaez, an Iran skilled at Disaster Group, says that the most effective final result is perhaps that the US and Iran attain a “calm-for-calm” association for the brief time period, much like what they reached final September, which concerned a prisoner swap and the Biden administration agreeing to unfreeze $6bn of the republic’s oil cash.
However, Vaez provides, “there’s a mismatch of expectations between the west and Iran on what’s fascinating, what’s acceptable and what’s doable, and people discussions can be very tough”.
For Pezeshkian, a deal and the avoidance of a regional conflict is significant. Whereas he has solely spoken typically phrases about his financial plans, it’s almost definitely the financial system that can decide whether or not he’ll be capable of reverse the widening chasm between Iran’s folks and its management.
“Economic system is the highest precedence however it’s intently tied to international coverage, which in flip is linked to home politics. That’s why Pezeshkian has shaped a nationwide unity authorities,” says Mohammad Ali Abtahi, a former reformist vice-president. “To date, he has been profitable in serving to create a distinct social and political ambiance, one that’s not corresponding to just some months in the past. In any other case, we might be listening to extra about conflict.”
Further reporting by Felicia Schwartz
