Iran has had an election for its presidency. Ebrahim Raisi won in a very low turnout election. As former Iranian political prisoner and journalist Jason Rezaian explains, the Guardian Council bars candidates for running for the presidency or the legislature if they are insufficiently loyal to the religious principles of the velayat e-faqih, or rule by religious scholars. As a result, you have had cycles in the Iranian presidency, where a reform oriented president (Mohammad Khatami 1997-2005; Hassan Rouhani 2013-2021) is succeeded by a revanchist hard liner (Mahmoud Ahmadinejad 2005-2013 and now Raisi).
Because of the role of the Guardian Council, Iran - under its current regime - will never elect a republican who would change the nature of the Islamic Republic. Iranian elections are neither free nor rigged. OK, 2009 was rigged. But usually the Guardian Council simply denies the Iranian people a true choice.
When the media refer to "hardliners" in Iran, they are not talking about their religious views. It's not that they are hardliners about human rights or democratic rights, because few candidates that espouse democratic values are even allowed to run.
Raisi is a rank authoritarian, but it's unclear what his position will be on the Joint Plan of Action or Iranian Nuclear deal. Perhaps Rouhani can re-negotiate the deal during the lame duck period. It's unclear that Raisi would withdraw from that deal. From the American perspective, getting everyone back into the JPA is the primary goal of American Iranian policy.
The more interesting question is what happens within Iran.
Iran is suffering through multiple crises. Their early Covid response was awful; they have a massive opioid problem; the economy is in the toilet; they only have a handful of friends abroad. Iran has a well-educated underemployed urban population and a conservative underemployed religiously conservative rural population. When an educated urban population win over enough disaffected working class people, you have the conditions for a revolution.
Raisi is the president for a regime that will reach for the "Chinese solution" of meeting protest with lethal force. However, the role of martyrdom in Shiism could make that backfire. That was what brought down the Shah.
Tocqueville famously said that the most dangerous moment for a bad regime is when it tries to reform itself. Iran has not tried to reform itself so much as rearrange its role in the world. However, the population is clearly fed up with aspects of the regime's corruption, repression and incompetence. Rouhani protected Ayatollah Khamenei by being from a different faction of Iranian politics. With Raisi now becoming the focus of Iranian discontent, there is no buffer between the presidency and the Supreme Leader.
Revolutions are rare and rarely "successful." But Iran looks increasingly ripe for civil discontent. Who know how far that will go?
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