Masoud Pezeshkian has a track record of loyalty to the regime.
Masoud Pezeshkian has a track record of loyalty to the regime.
M asoud Pezeshkian’s victory in Iran’s presidential election on July 5 was met with a markedly positive reaction by international media. Many have touted the president-elect’s supposedly reformist bona fides — either by asserting that he wants “women to have the right to dress as they choose,” by emphasizing his calls for renewed talks with the West, or by claiming he supported antiregime protest movements in recent years. This coverage both contradicts Pezeshkian’s wider political profile and feeds into the narrative promoted by the Islamic Republic’s spin masters. It also demonstrates Khamenei’s probable motivation for allowing Pezeshkian to be put forward as a candidate in the first place.
From the beginning of his career, Pezeshkian has supported the Islamic Republic’s repressive policies. Even before entering politics, he enforced compulsory hijab-wearing among his staff at Tabriz University of Medical Sciences. Despite his academic background, there is scant evidence he supported the 1999 student protests while deputy health minister during President Mohammad Khatami’s first term. Further, unlike cabinet minister Mostafa Moeen, who resigned in protest, Pezeshkian retained his position and was promoted to health minister in Khatami’s second term.
After winning a seat in parliament in 2008, Pezeshkian gained a reputation for paying lip service to dissent while aligning with Khamenei’s positions. During the 2009 Green Movement, he criticized the violent methods of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) but did not support the democratization efforts as his reformist allies did.
Under Rouhani’s presidency, Pezeshkian defended the Iran nuclear deal and pushed for continued negotiations after the United States withdrew in 2018. Even so, he showed loyalty to the regime, rallying behind the IRGC when it was designated a terrorist organization in 2019, even donning their uniform and offering praise.
As Ebrahim Raisi took office and reformists were increasingly removed from power, Pezeshkian maintained his parliamentary seat — a rather telling situation, as it meant that his place in the regime’s choreographed political constellation was largely unchanged. Though credited by international media for his “criticism” of morality laws and of repression against the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement in 2022, that characterization greatly misrepresents his record. Except for vague statements, Pezeshkian did not criticize the laws that caused the death of Mahsa Amini.
When pressed, he deflected, arguing that the regime failed at “educating” women, leading them to not “comply” with moral regulations. He also shifted blame away from the regime’s crackdowns, claiming that the protesters themselves were “culprits” who beat police officers, forcibly removed hijabs from women’s heads, and burned the flag of the Islamic Republic. Pezeshkian alleged that the crimes were committed, at the behest of foreign influences, to cause a civil war and “insult” the supreme leader. He called for the suppressive government machinery that killed Amini to investigate her death.
Pezeshkian’s ambition to maintain political relevancy can be seen during the 2024 parliamentary election. Initially the government disqualified him from running. The decision to disqualify him was reversed even as other reformists, including Khatami, boycotted the contest. After the government disqualified Pezeshkian from running for president in 2021, it green-lighted him to do so in 2024, demonstrating that ultimately he is trusted by the Iranian regime.
Throughout his 2024 campaign, Pezeshkian maintained this balancing act. He appropriated symbols associated with the protest movements he failed to support, saying that the protesters he once criticized were like “family.” At the same time, he demonstrated his loyalty to Khamenei’s agenda, promising to support the IRGC’s weapons programs, promising obedience to the supreme leader, and committing to Raisi’s unfinished agenda.
Pezeshkian has pursued this pattern as president-elect. In an opinion piece published in Al-Araby Al-Jadeed shortly after his election, he sprinkles offers to the region for cooperation to combat terrorism while supporting “all forms” of resistance by Palestinians. Pezeshkian echoes Rouhani’s World Against Violent Extremism (WAVE) initiative and advocates a nuclear-weapons free zone, which Iranian officials have long advocated. But in recent years Iran’s nuclear program and IRGC influence have only grown. Khamenei can exploit Pezeshkian’s tone and style, akin to that of Khatami and Rouhani, to advance IRGC ambitions, thwart international efforts to isolate Iran, and divide the Iranian opposition.
With Pezeshkian as chairman, the dynamics of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) will change. However, he will be weak, given both his lack of inner leadership experience and the record low-turnout in the election. Khamenei will control key cabinet appointments, exercising dominance over the selections for the most sensitive ministerial portfolios. Past presidents could not even oust their intelligence ministers and SNSC secretaries because of Khamenei’s veto.
In the end, the supreme leader will exercise his will over Pezeshkian. “People should elect a president whose views do not conflict with those of the Leader of the Revolution and who considers himself second-in-command,” Yahya Rahim Safavi, military adviser to the supreme leader, warned during the presidential campaign.
Uncritically accepting Pezeshkian as a reformist feeds directly into the narrative that the Islamic Republic has sought to craft. So far, this effort appears to be working in some circles. Regime-aligned media outlets are even republishing some Western coverage of Pezeshkian’s victory on a word-for-word basis.
But Pezeshkian was allowed to run for president as part of an effort to create the illusion of choice and boost declining political participation. He was elevated to the presidency not to enact meaningful reform but in an effort to co-opt dissent ahead of new protests, divide the West, deflect international criticism, and as an instrument to pursue sanctions relief, which he has long advocated. His victory is the result of a choreographed pageant, not a genuine groundswell of support.
Jason M. Brodsky is the policy director of United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) and a nonresident scholar at the Middle East Institute. Jack Roush is a research associate at UANI and a Ph.D. candidate at the London School of Economics and Political Science, where he is researching bilateral relations between Iran and the U.S.