Nuclear Issues

Professor Nicholas Burns appeared on CNN to speak about the week's chaos in the White House, as well as recent events in North Korea, Russia, and Venezuela. 

Despite its flaws, the May 19 presidential election offered Iranian voters a real choice between the moderate incumbent President Hassan Rohani and a hard-line rival, Ayatollah Ebrahim Raeisi. Djavad Salehi-Isfahani writes to The Arab Weekly that Rohani’s decisive win with 57% of the vote, combined with a sweep by reformist candidates in the city council elections in Tehran and several other major cities, gives him a strong mandate to move for­ward with his program of eco­nomic reform.

More than forty million Iranians surged to the polls and voted last Friday to choose their country’s future path: between one of engagement and diplomacy with the West and one based on a self-reliant economic populism. Although Iranians overwhelmingly chose the former option, the implications of these elections indicate that major battles over the fight for the next Supreme Leader and the political identity of the country loom on the horizon. In his latest article to the Washington Post, Payam Mohseni, Director of the Belfer Center's Iran Project, discusses the nature of the conservative campaign against President Hassan Rouhani and how, win or lose, it is the tenability and success of this conservative alliance that will significantly impact the future path that Iran takes—not simply the current re-election of Rouhani to the presidency.

Although Rouhani has an incumbent’s advantage, his promised economic revival is seen by many as having fallen short of his stated goals, and he has been the target of unceasing and strong allegations of corruption. Despite the fact that every Iranian president in the post-Khomeini period has served two terms, why is Rouhani in a precarious position? And what are the factors that anti-Rouhani forces are trying to use to their advantage? In an article to The National Interest, Payam Mohseni, Director of the Belfer Center's Iran Project, shows that recalling the lessons of the 2005 election, which brought Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to power, serves as a useful model in understanding this year’s contest and the challenges Rouhani faces in maintaining power.