In Iran’s main turning factors, Hassan Rouhani’s identify tends to resurface – even when he’s not on the centre of decision-making. And because the Islamic Republic enters a delicate transitional part after Supreme Chief Ali Khamenei was killed in a joint United States-Israeli strike, the query of which figures could be used to calm the home area or rebalance energy contained in the system has returned to the forefront.
Rouhani, Iran’s former president (2013–2021), a Muslim chief with a doctorate in legislation, shouldn’t be an outsider to the system he as soon as promised to “reform”. He’s a product of it: a longtime parliamentarian, a veteran of the national-security equipment, and a former chief nuclear negotiator who rose to the presidency in 2013 as a pragmatist providing financial aid by means of diplomacy.
The lengthy street by means of parliament
Rouhani was born in 1948 in Sorkheh, in Iran’s Semnan province. He acquired spiritual coaching within the Hawza system (Islamic spiritual seminary), then studied legislation on the College of Tehran, earlier than incomes a PhD in legislation from Glasgow Caledonian College in 1999.
After the revolution, he constructed his profession by means of parliament. He was elected to the Majlis (Iran’s legislature) for 5 consecutive phrases between 1980 and 2000, giving him sensible political expertise and longstanding relationships inside the elite.
That background explains a part of his later picture as a “consensus man” greater than an ideological confrontational chief: somebody who strikes inside the guidelines of the sport, not exterior them.
A ‘third street’ in Iran’s post-revolution politics
To know Rouhani’s political model, it helps to position it in an extended arc of post-1979 ideological currents contained in the Islamic Republic – an arc usually described in Iranian political writing as a sequence of competing “discourses” that nonetheless remained anchored to the revolution and the system’s religious-constitutional framework.
Iran moved by means of phases that emphasised completely different priorities: currents typically described as “Islamic left”, “Islamic liberalism”, and a extra market-oriented flip beneath former chief Hashemi Rafsanjani; then a interval of “Islamic democracy” and “civil society” related to Mohammad Khatami; adopted by a social-justice-heavy, populist register beneath Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
That’s when Rouhani arrived with the language of e‘tedal –or “moderation”.
Inside that framework, “moderation” presents itself as an try and stability what supporters name the system’s two pillars: the “Republic” (pragmatism, governance, responsiveness) and the “Islamic” (beliefs, clerical authority, revolutionary identification). This stability turned central to Rouhani’s pitch in 2013: He promised to scale back exterior strain, restart financial progress and decrease home polarisation with out difficult the authority construction that in the end constrains any elected president in Iran.
The negotiator and president
Between 2003 and 2005, Rouhani led Iran’s delegation in nuclear negotiations with the “European troika” (Britain, France and Germany). He gained a popularity as a “pragmatist” amongst Western diplomats, whereas Iranian hardliners accused him of constructing concessions.
Later, that document turned a pillar of his 2013 presidential marketing campaign: a negotiator quite than a confrontationist.
In June that yr, Rouhani received the presidency within the first spherical with greater than 50 p.c of the vote, avoiding a run-off in an election that noticed excessive turnout.
Rouhani’s signature achievement was the 2015 nuclear settlement, the Joint Complete Plan of Motion (JCPOA), negotiated between Iran and the P5+1 – the US, China, Russia, France, United Kingdom and European Union.
Beneath the deal, the US and its allies lifted the majority of sanctions imposed on Iran, and allowed Tehran entry to greater than $100bn in frozen belongings. In change, Iran agreed to main caps on its nuclear programme.
At residence, Rouhani offered the deal as a path to normalise the financial system and curb inflation.
2017: A second mandate – and first brush with Trump
In Might 2017, Rouhani received a second time period with about 57 p.c of the vote. Many inside Iran learn the outcome as a guess by the nation’s folks on continued “opening” and decreased isolation.
However the energy equation inside Iran didn’t change. The presidency manages day-to-day governance, but it surely doesn’t determine alone on the safety companies, the judiciary, the Revolutionary Guards or the core media structure.
The diplomatic opening proved short-lived. In 2018, US President Donald Trump, in his first time period, withdrew Washington from the JCPOA and reimposed sweeping sanctions, sharply limiting the financial beneficial properties Rouhani had promised. The reversal weakened Iran’s pragmatists and reformists, who had invested political capital in defending the settlement as one of the best out there route out of isolation–whereas giving hardliners new ammunition to argue that negotiations with the US can not ship sturdy aid.
Publish-presidential yr – and a return from political exile?
Rouhani’s presidency led to 2021, and with the rise of conservative dominance inside Iran’s politics, he gave the impression to be step by step pushed to the margins. He then turned a member of Iran’s Meeting of Consultants – the physique constitutionally empowered to decide on the supreme chief.
However in January 2024, the Reuters information company reported that the Guardian Council barred Rouhani from operating once more for the Meeting of Consultants.
Two years later, after the February 28 strike that killed Khamenei, the nation – in accordance with the structure– entered a brief association part till the Meeting of Consultants selects a brand new chief. President Masoud Pezeshkian, Supreme Courtroom Chief Justice Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei and Guardian Council member Ayatollah Alireza Arafi type the interim management council which can be in cost till the Meeting of Consultants broadcasts its choose for the subsequent Supreme Chief.
And from the hushed conversations and chatter which have emerged from inside Iran’s elite circles over potential candidates for the supreme chief’s function, Rouhani’s identify has resurfaced.
That potential return to political life, analysts say, is a testomony to what Rouhani represents in Iran’s factional geometry: a governing fashion that privileges tactical compromise, financial administration and managed engagement – whereas remaining essentially loyal to the Islamic Republic’s constitutional-religious structure.
As Iran plans Khamenei’s succession, it faces a central query: whether or not to broaden legitimacy by incorporating pragmatic faces or double down on a security-first posture. Rouhani sits at that crossroads – not the architect of the system, and not a principal decision-maker, however a sturdy indicator of how far Iran’s institution is keen to bend with out breaking.
