Hossein Dehghan and other military vets vie for Iran’s presidency - Atlantic Council

Iranian politics today are reminiscent of the early 2000s, when hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad replaced reformist President Mohammad Khatami in 2005 with the support of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 and the United States’ response to them—invading Afghanistan and then Iraq and putting Iran on a rhetorical “Axis of Evil”—sealed the failure of Khatami’s efforts to reduce tensions with Washington and further paved the way for the rise of the IRGC in Iranian politics. The election of Donald Trump in 2016, his disavowal of the Iran nuclear deal, and policy of “maximum pressure”—including sanctions and threats of military confrontation—have had a similar impact. In this tense environment, the military is playing an even more active role in Iran’s foreign and domestic policies.

In the last parliamentary elections held in February, many reformist candidates were disqualified and the hardliners regained the majority they had lost to supporters of pragmatist President Rouhani in 2016, taking 221 of the 290 seats in parliament. In the process, Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, a former IRGC commander who had run unsuccessfully in 2005 and 2013 for the presidency, became the speaker of parliament. With the judiciary also headed by a conservative, the presidency is the only office not currently occupied by this group since Ahmadinejad left office in 2013.