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Reformist Masoud Pezeshkian is Inaugurated as Iran’s New President

July 30, 20242:11

Reformist Masoud Pezeshkian is being sworn in as Iran’s new President this week. The 71-year-old heart surgeon and former member of the Iranian parliament is known for his reformist stance and has been a vocal critic of Iran’s notorious morality police. David Hale, Former Ambassador to Pakistan, Lebanon, and Jordan, discusses what this moment of transition means for Iran. He talks about who Pezeshkian is and what kind of power he will have to effect change, how women might benefit from his leadership, and whether or not the new President will re-engage in negotiations over the country’s nuclear program.

Transcript of Video

  • He is an ostensible moderate. The Iranian regime, the Revolutionary Guards and the clerical establishment choose a slate of candidates who can run for president. So all of them were deemed to be acceptable. But he was viewed as the most moderate amongst them. So it is interesting that the Iranian public, given a choice, moved as far to the moderate camp as they could in electing him.

    I think he's going to see if he can test the margins on the things he talked about in the election, which, as I said, is gender and human rights, and human rights writ large. I mean, greater, greater, oxygen for the Iranian people in terms of free speech and freedom to just go about their lives.

    But as we all know from the studies of revolutions that lose their fervor and become totalitarian regimes, the more they are tempted to give up and grant rights and freedoms to people, the more at risk they are that the popular opinion will be expressed against them.

    I don't think there'll be much change with his presidency. But the biggest possible area, the area to watch is what happens on gender rights.

    The Iranian women have clearly spoken, as have many men, about the intolerance, how intolerable it is, the measures and restrictions under which they have to to suffer and so I think this is an area that the regime may give the new president some maneuvering room. If you look at Saudi Arabia, the crown prince there has opened up to some degree, given a ray of hope to women there.

    And so it's possible to do it even in an authoritarian Islamic country.

    As far as Iran's foreign policy and the status of the nuclear deal, I don't think that the new president's going to have much involvement in that. Historically that's been the case with his predecessors, even the more hardline ones.

    That's really the brief of the spiritual leader and the security services.

     

Guest

David Hale

David Hale

Global Fellow;
Former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs; Former Ambassador to Pakistan, Lebanon, and Jordan
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Hosted By

Middle East Program

The Wilson Center’s Middle East Program serves as a crucial resource for the policymaking community and beyond, providing analyses and research that helps inform US foreign policymaking, stimulates public debate, and expands knowledge about issues in the wider Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region.  Read more