At major turning points in Iran, Hassan Rouhani’s name recurs — even though he is no longer at the center of decision-making. And as the Islamic Republic enters a delicate transition phase after Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei was killed in a joint United States-Israeli strike, the question of what figures can be used to calm the domestic arena or rebalance power within the system has returned to the fore.
Rouhani, Iran’s former president (2013-2021), a Muslim leader with a doctorate in law, is no stranger to a system he once promised “reform.” He is its product: a former chief nuclear negotiator who rose to the presidency in 2013 as a longtime parliamentarian, a veteran of the national security apparatus and a pragmatist seeking economic relief through diplomacy.
A long road through Parliament
Rouhani was born in 1948 in Sorkeh, Semnan Province, Iran. He received religious training in the Hawja system (Islamic religious seminary), then studied law at the University of Tehran before earning a PhD in law from Glasgow Caledonian University in 1999.
After the revolution, he built his career through parliament. He was elected to the Majlis (Iran’s legislature) for five consecutive terms between 1980 and 2000, giving him practical political experience and long-standing connections within the elite.
That background explains part of his later image as a “consensus figure” rather than a hero of ideological confrontation: someone who moves within the rules of the game, not outside them.
The ‘Third Road’ in Iran’s Post-Revolutionary Politics
To understand Rouhani’s brand of politics, it helps to place it within the long arc of post-1979 ideological currents of the Islamic Republic—often described in Iranian political writing as a sequence of competing “discourses” that underpinned the revolution and the religio-constitutional framework of the system.
Iran moved through phases emphasizing different priorities: currents sometimes called “Islamic left”, “Islamic liberalism”, and a more market-oriented turn under former leader Hashemi Rafsanjani; Then the period of “Islamic democracy” and “civil society” is associated with Mohammad Khatami; A social-justice-heavy, populist register followed under Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
Then Rouhani arrived with the language of e’tedal—or “moderation.”
Within that framework, “moderation” presents itself as an attempt to balance what supporters call the two pillars of the system: “republican” (pragmatism, governance, responsiveness) and “Islamic” (ideals, clerical authority, revolutionary identity). This balance became central to Rouhani’s pitch in 2013: He promised to reduce external pressure, resume economic growth and less domestic polarization without challenging the power structure that would eventually block any elected president in Iran.
Negotiator and Chairman
Between 2003 and 2005, Rouhani led Iran’s delegation to the nuclear talks with the “European Troika” (Britain, France and Germany). He earned a reputation as a “pragmatist” among Western diplomats, but Iranian hardliners accused him of making concessions.
Later, that document became a cornerstone of his 2013 presidential campaign: consultative rather than confrontational.
In June of the same year, Rouhani won the presidency with more than 50 percent of the vote in the first round, avoiding a run-off in an election that saw a high turnout.
Rouhani’s signature achievement is the 2015 nuclear deal, the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), negotiated between Iran and the P5+1 — the US, China, Russia, France, the United Kingdom and the European Union.
Under the deal, the US and its allies lifted most of the sanctions imposed on Iran and allowed Tehran access to more than $100bn in frozen assets. Instead, Iran accepted major limitations on its nuclear program.
At home, Rouhani sold a deal to normalize the economy and curb inflation.
2017: A second mandate — and a first brush with Trump
In May 2017, Rouhani won a second term with nearly 57 percent of the vote. Many inside Iran read the result as a bet on the continued “opening” and reduced isolation of the country’s people.
But the power equation inside Iran did not change. The presidency handles day-to-day governance, but it does not determine the security services, the judiciary, the Revolutionary Guards, or the core media architecture.
The diplomatic opening was short-lived. In 2018, US President Donald Trump, in his first term, withdrew Washington from the JCPOA and reimposed sweeping sanctions, severely limiting the economic gains promised by Rouhani. The contrast undermined Iran’s pragmatists and reformists, who invested political capital in defending the deal as the best available path out of isolation — while giving hardliners new ammunition to argue that negotiations with the US could not produce a durable solution.
A post-presidential year – and a return from political exile?
Rouhani’s presidential term ended in 2021, and with the rise of conservative dominance in Iran’s politics, he appeared to be gradually marginalized. He later became a member of Iran’s Assembly of Experts – the body constitutionally empowered to elect the Supreme Leader.
But in January 2024, the Reuters news agency reported that the Guardian Council had barred Rouhani from running again for a meeting of experts.
Two years later, after the February 28 strike that killed Khamenei, the country – according to the constitution – entered a provisional system phase until an assembly of experts elected a new leader. President Massoud Pezheshkian, Supreme Court Chief Justice Gholam-Hossein Mohseni-Ejei and Guardian Council member Ayatollah Alireza Arafi will form the Interim Leadership Council, which will be in charge until the Assembly of Experts announces the selection of the next Supreme Leader.
And with secret conversations and chatter emanating from Iran’s elite circles about possible candidates for the role of supreme leader, Rouhani’s name has resurfaced.
The possible return to political life, analysts say, is a testament to what Rouhani represents in Iran’s factional geometry: a governing style that privileges tactical compromise, economic management and controlled engagement — while remaining fundamentally loyal to the Islamic republic’s constitutional-religious architecture.
As Iran plans Khamenei’s succession, it faces a central question: whether to expand legitimacy by incorporating pragmatic facets or double down on a security-first posture. Rouhani sits at that crossroads — not the system’s architect, and no longer a key decision-maker, but an enduring indicator of how far Iran’s establishment is willing to bend without breaking.
(tags to translate) Features
