Hasan Rowhani’s victory in the first round of the presidential elections in Iran is presented in the international media mostly as an ignominious defeat to the hard-line clerics and Iran’s supreme leader Ali Hosseini Khamenei.

Indeed, prima facie, Rowhani’s victory seems as a ray of hope for a change in Iran’s domestic and international policy. However, a closer look at the “democratic” procedure that took place in Iran last weekend and at its implications suggests that Khamenei and the hard-line clerics did not necessarily lose. In fact, Rowhani’s victory serves well both their domestic and international interests.

In the domestic arena, the eight years of Ahmedinejad’s presidency wreaked havoc on the Iranian economy. Under Ahmedinejad’s leadership, inflation and unemployment rates reached new heights. This circumstance was a direct result of the former president’s incompetence in implementing his policy of subsidy reforms and of his confrontational approach toward the West ― an approach that only further motivated the United States and Europe to impose economic sanctions on Iran and augment them periodically.

In the past eight years, Iran’s atrophying economy and the brutal suppression of basic human rights by the regime, as manifested, for example, in the June 2009 electoral coup and the clampdown on the street demonstrations that followed, had built up much public anger against Ahmedinejad and the conservative ayatollahs.

Last week, realizing the gravity of the situation, Khamenei chose not to carry out another electoral coup. Instead, by allowing Rowhani to run for presidency and then by accepting his victory over the conservative candidates, Khamenei provided the Iranian public with a much craved for opportunity to release its pent up anger and in the process vent its spleen at Ahmedinejad rather than on the ayatollahs and their supreme leader.

Significantly, Rowhani, a cleric himself, who was successfully vetted by the Guardian Council, is unlikely to challenge the political structure of the Iranian Islamic Republic in which the clerics and their supreme leader hold absolute power. Indeed, as far as the ayatollahs’ regime is concerned, Rowhani is not a harbinger of sweeping democratic reforms, but rather an instrument to be manipulated in order to keep in check the flames of democratic aspirations and prevent them from spreading from the progressive camp to the Iranian public at-large.

In this regard, centrist Rowhani’s presidential candidacy had plausibly contributed to reformist Mohammad Reza Aref’s decision to drop out of the presidential race just a few days before the elections took place and thus to maximize Rowhani’s chances of scoring a significant achievement against his conservative competition.

In the international arena, Rowhani’s victory will probably buy Iran more time to continue enriching uranium and further develop and fortify its nuclear program in violation of the nonproliferation treaty and U.N. Security Council resolutions. Although the supreme leader, Khamenei, would continue to dictate Iran’s nuclear policy and oversee its nuclear talks with the P5+1, the United States and Europe may refrain for several months from increasing the pressure on Iran with the faint hope that the new Rowhani administration would bring about some change in Iran’s nuclear policy.

However, Rowhani and Khamenei differ only in their tactical approach to the strategic goal of achieving an indigenous nuclear deterrent production capability. This strategic goal is inextricably related to the fact that Iran perceives itself as a regional heavyweight with aspirations and interests in the Persian Gulf and the Middle East which collide with those of the United States. Iran’s involvement in the formation of the Nouri al-Maliki’s governing coalition in Iraq, its territorial claim to Bahrain and its current assistance in men and ammunition to the Asad regime in Syria ― assistance which is provided either directly or via Syria’s proxy in Lebanon, the Hezbollah ― are a few cases in point.

Being bogged down in the Syrian quagmire, Iran may opt to seek a respite on the nuclear front in order to lower the probability of an American or Israeli strike on its nuclear installations at a time when its ability to retaliate is limited.

In November 2003, when president-elect Rowhani served as Iran’s chief nuclear negotiator under the reformist president Mohammad Khatami, Tehran agreed to a temporary suspension of its nuclear activity that lasted nearly two years.

Some Iran watchers would point out, however, that Iran’s 2003 concessions were made against the backdrop of America’s invasion of Iraq and hard-line neoconservatives’ calls to the Bush administration to make a right turn into Iran. A decade later, financially overstretched America had already withdrawn its forces from Iraq and is on the verge of pulling out of Afghanistan as well. A recent study published by “The Iran Project” and signed by former U.S. government officials illustrates how reluctant Washington is to commit itself to a military campaign, even a limited one, in Iran in the event of a nuclear crisis.

Aware of America’s fear of getting entangled in a deeper quagmire than those of Iraq and Afghanistan and of the fact that China and Russia have proved trustworthy in partially substituting for markets lost as a result of the American and European sanctions, Iran has so far shown no willingness to compromise with regard to its nuclear program.

Although Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, told news reporters, following Rowhani’s victory, that Teheran had signaled its readiness to stop enriching uranium beyond 5 percent, it is yet to be seen whether Iran is willing to accept the latest proposal of the P5+1 for breaking the gridlock in the nuclear talks between the two sides.

This proposal includes not only a demand for an Iranian moratorium on enriching uranium beyond 5 percent, but requires Iran to dispose of its existing stockpile of uranium enriched to 20 percent. Furthermore, it seeks to impose limitations on the activity of the underground enrichment facility near Qom. In return, the P5+1 are willing to suspend some of the incisive sanctions which had been imposed on Iran. Would Rowhani try to persuade Khamenei to accept the P5+1’s proposal for the sake of a better future for Iran’s economy? If so, will he succeed? Only time will tell. 

By Niv Farago 

Niv Farago is a proliferation specialist and a senior research fellow at Sogang University’s Institute of Social Science. He holds a Ph.D. degree in politics and international studies from the University of Cambridge. ― Ed.