TEHRAN, Iran – Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has had the most eventful and tumultuous month and a half since taking office since the 1979 revolution.
Over the past seven weeks, Iran has been grappling with rising tensions with Israel, including the possibility of retaliatory attacks, as it continues to try to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza. Pezechkian also faces a series of domestic political challenges.
At his first press conference since taking office on Monday, the president told domestic and international journalists that the world must stop the “massacre” Israel is waging in Gaza, calling for unity in the Muslim world and denying that Israel had fired hypersonic ballistic missiles at Yemen’s Houthi rebels a day after they fired shells into central Israel.
Pezechkian’s accomplishments so far can be summarized as follows:
What has happened since Pezeshkian took office?
Haniyeh was assassinated by a missile north of Tehran on July 31, hours after Pezechkian shook hands with Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh at his inauguration in the Iranian parliament.
The president and other top political and military officials have condemned Israel and promised revenge against Palestinian leaders, but have so far refrained from retaliating, fearing a major Iranian counterattack would lead to an all-out regional war.
Iran also said it would calibrate and time any retaliatory measures so as not to jeopardize prospects for a Gaza ceasefire.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is increasingly seen by some in Israeli society as an obstacle to peace and recently faced its largest anti-government protests since last October. But Netanyahu and some of his allies have sought to blame Hamas and other allies of Iran, including Hezbollah and the Houthis, for the tensions in the region.
The president departed on his first overseas trip last week, visiting government officials in Baghdad and Erbil, neighboring Iraq, and is due to travel to New York this month to address the United Nations General Assembly.
Pezeshkian is focused on domestic politics, where he can claim a significant victory: For the first time since 2001, his entire list of cabinet appointees was approved by parliament, though the success was controversial.
Are the Pezeshkians preparing for war?
The Iranian president has positioned himself as a moderate who loyally follows the regime’s leadership on the highest levels of decisions, while at the same time touting his ties to reformists, whose influence has waned in recent years.
Pezeshkian has vowed to exact revenge against Haniyeh and touted his commitment to Iran’s decades of support for the Palestinian cause. He has supported military action against Israel in meetings with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and top Iranian military commanders.
But he also promises to bring greater stability and end Iran’s economic isolation by working to lift U.S. sanctions and pass financial transparency legislation — goals that cannot be achieved as long as Iran remains militarily involved in escalating regional conflicts as the fallout from the Gaza war unfolds.
Last week, the United States and European allies formally accused Iran of sending short-range ballistic missiles to Russia for use in the Ukraine war. Iran continues to deny that it supplied weapons to Russia in the conflict. The agreement to send the missiles was allegedly concluded in late 2023 before Pezechkian took office, but his administration would have to deal with sanctions and other restrictions imposed by Western countries on Iran’s flagship aircraft as a result.
Why did the President’s Cabinet cause trouble?
Pezechkian is also being tested domestically.
Although he was widely believed to have little chance of becoming president when he registered as a candidate, his political standing has risen rapidly, garnering support from marginalized reformers and moderates such as former presidents Hassan Rouhani and Mohammed Khatami.
He pledged to make reforms, including improving the economy and curbing soaring inflation, refraining from using force to address the controversial issue of mandatory head coverings for women, opening up the heavily restricted internet and making voters feel heard. The policy of requiring women to wear the hijab sparked nationwide protests in 2022 and 2023.
Led by former Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif, the Pezechkian team set up a council of working groups to select the best candidates for cabinet posts. Candidates would have a much better chance of winning if they were young, female or from a religious or ethnic minority, Zarif promised on state television.
So when Pezeshkian appointed a cabinet filled with members of previous governments and hardline political factions that didn’t meet those standards, it disappointed many who supported him in an election marked by unprecedented voter apathy, with turnout below 50 percent.
Of the 19 ministers, three were from the government of the late President Ebrahim Raisi, most notably Information Minister Esmail Khatib, five were ministers in Rouhani’s government and two were members of the conservative-majority parliament.
The choice for interior minister, army and police commander General Eskandar Momeni, is perhaps the most controversial given his military record, his closeness to conservative parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and his past comments about the need to make the hijab mandatory.
The two youngest ministers, including only the second woman minister since the 1979 revolution, are 47 years old. The average age of the cabinet is nearly 60. There are no representatives of religious minorities among the ministers, but there are several among the deputy ministers.
The backlash was so great that Pezeshkian himself was forced to respond, urging Iranians in a post on X to “wait for the cabinet to function and then criticize it based on its performance.”
Zarif was given the title of “vice president for presidential strategy” for his fervent defense of Pezeshkian’s cause during his election campaign, but resigned after the Cabinet was announced. After the president personally called him to dissuade him, Zarif said he never regretted helping Pezeshkian win the election and would stay on in the position.
What influenced Pezeshkian’s cabinet appointments?
Pezeshkian set out to form a government of “national unity” that would be faithful to the supreme leader’s priorities but include representatives from across the political spectrum.
After winning the presidential election, he called on his opponents to also announce their cabinet nominees.
But it caught people’s attention when the president spoke in parliament in defense of the candidates and said that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had personally approved the list.
“I want to tell you that we were in the process of making arrangements before we came here. I want you to take this word from us. Why make me say something I don’t want to say?,” Pezechkian asked. “Don’t make me fine-tune it. Just let us vote and form a government.”
The daily Kayhan, whose editor-in-chief is appointed by Khamenei, wrote an editorial criticizing the president for presenting an “incomplete narrative” that foreign media were using to argue the supreme leader sets policy and the government has no real authority.
After the incident, Khamenei said he had “consulted” Pezechkian about the Cabinet.
“I have confirmed some and highlighted others. I did not know many so I cannot comment,” the supreme leader said.
What do the Cabinet appointments indicate?
Pezechkian chose as head of the foreign ministry Abbas Araghchi, a career diplomat who was a key figure in negotiations with Western countries over the past decade and helped secure Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers that remains in limbo after the United States unilaterally withdrew from it in 2018.
Araghchi said Tehran was open to further talks with the West but would prioritize actions over words. At the same time, he stressed in an interview on state television Sunday night that his government would pursue a policy of “unlimited support” to an “axis of resistance” of pro-Iranian political and military groups across the region.
Momeni, who has a history of working in the law enforcement agency’s anti-narcotics division, is believed to have been chosen to manage the flood of migrants that have flowed into Iran from neighboring Afghanistan since the Taliban took power in 2021. His appointment comes after Police Chief Ahmadreza Radan pledged to expel two million illegal migrants by March.
Defense Minister Aziz Nasirzadeh, a former fighter pilot and air force commander, has pledged to strengthen Iran’s air defenses, develop satellite carriers, build more warships and build more drones. Iran denies accusations that it has provided short-range ballistic missiles to Russia, but he has pledged to at least double military exports over the next four years.
