Search Results for: Raisi Iran

After Iran’s protests: What comes next?

     

The recent protests in Iran are unlikely to change who is in power. But they will spark a change of the system, led by the system, according to Dina Esfandiary, a… Read more »

After Rouhani’s election, now for Iran’s more important transition

     

Now that Iran has gone to the ballot to elect a president, U.S. policymakers should turn their attention to a more important transition in the offing, argues Mehdi Khalaji, a fellow at the… Read more »

Iran polarized ahead of pseudo-election

     

After an unexpectedly close race between President Hassan Rouhani, the pragmatic incumbent, and hardline challenger Ebrahim Raisi (left), ordinary Iranians on the eve of the vote appeared united only in… Read more »

Iran election exposes Islamic Republic’s façade and true face

     

The presidential election in Iran this Friday is being billed as yet another contest in which a spirited but ineffectual reformer is fighting it out with a hard-boiled theocrat. Meanwhile,… Read more »

After Khamenei: stable transition depends on Iran’s deep state

     

As Iran gears up for a leadership transition, it is important to see the Islamic Republic for what it is, and not what one may hope it can be, note… Read more »

Iran’s ‘mythical moderate’: Rafsanjani blended economic liberalism, political authoritarianism

     

Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani (above, left) , who has died aged 82, was one of the leaders of the Islamic Republic of Iran; a shrewd politician who many Iranians saw as… Read more »

Reformists, hardliners vie to influence choice of Iran’s next supreme leader

     

There is a lot of manoeuvring in Tehran to influence the decision on who will be Iran’s next supreme leader. There is no public succession plan for the most powerful… Read more »

Iran’s likely next supreme leader a hardline ideologue

     

The candidate Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the Revolutionary Guards are grooming to ascend to the post of supreme leader is one of the most reactionary members of Iran’s… Read more »

JCPOA failed to open up economic and political space within Iran

     

Activist Iyad el-Baghdadi had initially hoped that the Iran nuclear deal, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), would give Iran’s entrepreneurs, reformists, and civil society at large more breathing space:… Read more »