The election of reformist candidate Massoud Pezeshkian as president may give Iran a chance to soften its absolutist foreign policy and even open new diplomatic ties, current and former officials and experts said.
Pezeshkian, a cardiologist, member of parliament and former health minister, has little direct experience in foreign policy but he has promised to empower Iran's most elite, globalist diplomats to run his own foreign policy, raising hopes of warmer ties with the West.
Mr. Pezeshkian “represents a more pragmatic and less confrontational approach, both externally and internally,” said Dennis B. Ross, a longtime Middle East negotiator who served as a special assistant to President Barack Obama.
Still, Roth noted that Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “will likely go to great lengths to limit Pezeshkian's international efforts.”
The Iranian president's powers are largely confined to domestic affairs. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the country's supreme political and religious leader, makes all major policy decisions, particularly regarding foreign affairs and Iran's nuclear program.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the other leading branch of the Iranian regime, oversees all of Iran's military affairs. The IRGC and the supreme leader work closely together and decide how and when to use military force, including when sending proxy forces into Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen, and when threatening Israel.
Diplomats and analysts say Iran's foreign policy has become increasingly assertive in recent years, a trend that is likely to continue under Mr. Pezechkian, including strengthening alliances with other autocracies — Iran supplied Russia with drones and missiles for its attack on Ukraine — and portraying itself as a power to be reckoned with in both the Middle East and the West, despite domestic turmoil and a struggling economy.
“Iran's resistance axis has been remarkably successful, and it is difficult to understand why anyone would want to undermine the policies that have allowed Tehran to exercise power with a degree of impunity,” Ray Takei, an Iran expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, wrote in an analysis as the election drew near.
Relationship with the world
Analysts say the president's greatest international influence is shaping how Iranian policy is viewed around the world, primarily through the diplomats he chooses. This marks a stark contrast between Mr. Pezeshkian and his arch rival, the anti-Western ultra-conservative Saeed Djalili., It's tough.
Under hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Jalili staunchly opposed any agreement with the world to limit Iran's nuclear program in exchange for easing harsh economic sanctions. Instead, he pushed for enriching uranium to weapons-grade levels, Stimson Center experts wrote in a June analysis.
“His approach has led to the isolation of Iran,” said Ali Vaez, Iran director at the International Crisis Group. “He doesn't believe in the value of negotiating with the West.”
“I think there's a better chance of a diplomatic breakthrough” under Pezechkian, he said.
Detente relations with the Western countries
Pezechkian said he would decide how to engage with the international community and would support detente ties with the West in an effort to lift sanctions. He said he would like to foster communication with most governments in the world except Israel, but he also warned against placing too much emphasis on alliances with Russia or China. “Doing so could allow Russia or China to take advantage of Iran and further isolate it globally,” Vaez said.
“If we want to operate based on this policy, we must behave courteously towards everyone and build good relations based on dignity and interests,” Pezeshkian said in May. “The more diplomatic relations improve, the closer we are to the aforementioned policy, but the more tensions grow, the further we move from the policy and the worse the situation becomes.”
Vaez said Pezechkian has not proposed any specific foreign policy and has been quite forthright in admitting his lack of international experience, but his campaign's chief foreign policy adviser was Mohammed Javad Zarif, the former foreign minister who brokered the nuclear deal with world powers in 2015. Zarif, a fluent English-speaking diplomat who has lived in the United States, is derided by hardliners in the U.S. as a fictitious American.
The Trump factor
A key test of Iran’s interest in diplomacy with the West is whether it responds to efforts to revive the 2015 nuclear deal, an issue complicated by the candidacy of former President Donald J. Trump.
The deal, aimed at preventing Iran from building a nuclear bomb, technically expires next year. But it has effectively disappeared since President Trump withdrew the U.S. from the agreement in 2018 and reimposed sanctions. That has allowed Iran to speed up its uranium enrichment, and experts say it could now produce fuel for three or more nuclear bombs within a few days or weeks.
Iran has long maintained that its nuclear program is peaceful and that it is prohibited from making or using nuclear weapons by a 2003 fatwa, or religious edict, issued by Ayatollah Khamenei. U.S. officials say there is no evidence of any ongoing efforts to weaponize Iran's near-weapon-grade uranium, but Israel alleges such efforts are underway under the guise of university research.
Catherine Ashton, the British diplomat who oversaw the nuclear talks as the European Union's foreign policy chief when the interim agreement was reached in 2013, worked closely with both Jalili and Zarif at the negotiating table. She said Jalili's biggest concern was “continuing the negotiations without any real progress or results being made.”
Zarif, on the other hand, “had a much deeper understanding of the United States and Europe and was determined to secure Iran's future in the region,” Ashton said.
Khamenei had warned Iranians not to elect a president who could be seen as too open to the West, especially the U.S. Diplomats also point out that improved business relations with Russia over the past decade after years of mistrust and disagreement have helped Iran cope with its continuing isolation from the international community.
The war in Gaza has increased tensions between the US and Iranian-backed forces in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, reducing the chances of a new deal between Washington and Tehran, the Stimson Center experts wrote.
After Israel attacked the Iranian embassy in Syria in April, killing several Iranian commanders, Tehran retaliated by firing hundreds of missiles and drones at Israel, most of which were intercepted. This marked a serious escalation in the hostile relationship and likely prompted Iran to secure a stronger deterrent.
Avoiding a conflict with the United States
Still, Iran knows the United States is determined to avoid escalating a Middle East conflict, and there have been back-channel messages between the two capitals highlighting the dangers.
A prisoner exchange between the two countries last year stoked hopes of further diplomatic cooperation, as did indirect talks over their nuclear programs, but Iran is now focused on how or whether to respond if Trump is re-elected in November, as is widely assumed among Iranian politicians.
Negotiator Ross said Iran's new president would have the discretion to balance “pragmatism and adherence to the ideological norms set by the supreme leader” when making government decisions.
But Pezechkian's foreign policy, especially with regard to relations with the United States, where Khamenei has drawn clear lines of demarcation, has its limits. Even with the 2015 nuclear deal, Roth said, the supreme leader “distanced himself from the agreement and positioned himself to say, 'I told you so,' when President Trump withdrew from it.”
