Tehran, Iran – Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian has now been in office for a month and a half in one of the most eventful and tumultuous starting periods for a president since the country’s 1979 revolution.
Over the past seven weeks, Iran has grappled with rising tensions with Israel — including considering a retaliatory strike — amid continuing efforts to achieve a ceasefire in Gaza. Pezeshkian has also faced a series of domestic political challenges.
The president told local and foreign journalists during his first news conference on Monday that the world must stop the “genocide” Israel is perpetrating in Gaza while advocating unity among the Muslim world and denying sending hypersonic ballistic missiles to Yemen’s Houthis a day after they landed one of the projectiles in central Israel.
Here’s a rundown on how Pezeshkian has fared so far:
What’s happened since Pezeshkian’s inauguration?
Hours after Pezeshkian held up the hand of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh during his inauguration at the Iranian parliament, Haniyeh was assassinated by a missile in northern Tehran on July 31.
The president and other top political and military authorities have blamed Israel and promised to avenge the Palestinian leader, but they have so far refrained from a counterstrike amid concerns that a large-scale Iranian response could lead to an all-out regional war.
Iran has also said it will calibrate and time its retaliation in a way that would not jeopardise prospects of a Gaza ceasefire. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is increasingly seen, even by some segments in Israeli society, as an obstacle to peace, and he recently faced Israel’s largest antigovernment protests since October. Yet Netanyahu and some of his allies have tried to blame Hamas and Iran’s other allies, including Hezbollah and the Houthis, for regional tensions.
The president embarked on his first foreign trip last week, visiting top officials in neighbouring Iraq’s Baghdad and Erbil. He will travel to New York this month to address the United Nations General Assembly.
Pezeshkian has otherwise been focused on domestic politics, where he can claim a key win — his entire list of cabinet ministers was approved by parliament, a first since 2001, although that success came with controversies.
Is Pezeshkian gearing up for war?
The Iranian president has presented himself as a moderate figure who closely adheres to the establishment’s leadership on top decisions while also boasting ties with the more reformist voices whose influence has dwindled in recent years.
Pezeshkian has promised to avenge Haniyeh and has portrayed himself as committed to Iran’s decades-long support of the Palestinian cause. He has backed military action against Israel in meetings with top commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and the Iranian army.
But he has also promised to usher in more stability and end Iran’s economic isolation by working towards getting United States sanctions lifted and passing financial transparency laws. Those are goals that cannot be achieved if Iran is militarily involved in a regional escalation amid the widening fallout of the war on Gaza.
Last week, the US and its European allies formally accused Iran of sending short-range ballistic missiles to Russia to be used in the Ukraine war. Tehran continues to deny arming Russia in the conflict. The deal to send the missiles was allegedly signed in late 2023 before Pezeshkian’s presidency, but his government will have to deal with the resulting Western-imposed sanctions on Iran’s flagship airliner and other restrictions.
Why did the president’s cabinet cause a stir?
Domestically too, Pezeshkian has been tested.
He was widely believed to have little to no chance of becoming president when he registered as a candidate but quickly saw his political stock rise through support from pushed-aside reformists and moderates, including former presidents Hassan Rouhani and Mohammad Khatami.
He made reformist promises of improving the economy and managing runaway inflation, refraining from using force while dealing with the contentious issue of mandatory head coverings for women, opening up the highly restricted internet landscape and making voters feel heard. The policy of mandatory hijab for women sparked nationwide protests in 2022 and 2023.
Led by former Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, the Pezeshkian team set up a council with working groups to come up with the best candidates for ministerial positions. Being young, a woman, or a member of a religious or ethnic minority would significantly increase candidates’ chances, Zarif promised on national television.
So when Pezeshkian introduced a cabinet that included multiple names from previous governments and hardline political factions who did not meet those criteria, he dismayed many of those who backed him in an election marked by unprecedented voter apathy. Voter turnout was below 50 percent.
Out of 19 ministers, three were from the government of late President Ebrahim Raisi, most notably Intelligence Minister Esmail Khatib. Five were ministers in Rouhani’s government, and two were members of the conservative-dominated parliament.
The pick for interior minister, military and police commander Eskandar Momeni, was perhaps the most controversial due to his military background, his affinity with conservative parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf and past comments on the necessity to enforce mandatory hijab rules.
The two youngest ministers, including the second-ever female minister since the 1979 revolution, are 47 years old. The average age of the cabinet is close to 60. There are no representatives of religious minorities among the ministers although there are some among the deputies.
The backlash was so loud that Pezeshkian himself had to react, urging Iranians in a post on X to “wait for the cabinet to work and then criticise it based on its performance”.
Zarif – who was rewarded with a position as the “president’s deputy for strategic affairs”, which was invented for him for fervently championing Pezeshkian’s cause during his campaign – resigned after the cabinet was unveiled. After the president called him personally to dissuade him, Zarif said he never regretted getting Pezeshkian elected and would stay on in his position.
What influenced Pezeshkian’s cabinet choices?
Pezeshkian set out to form a “national unity” government that he said would stay true to the supreme leader’s priorities while selecting representatives from different political factions.
After winning the presidency, he called on his opponents in the race to announce their nominees for the cabinet as well.
But the president raised eyebrows when he addressed the parliament in a speech to defend the nominees and said Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had personally approved the list of candidates.
“I want to tell you that we coordinated before coming here. Accept this from us. Why are you making me say things that I don’t want to say?” Pezeshkian asked. “Don’t make me get into the details. Just vote and let us form a government.”
Keyhan, a daily newspaper whose editor-in-chief is appointed by Khamenei, criticised the president in an editorial for presenting an “incomplete narrative” that was abused by foreign media to claim that the supreme leader sets policy and the government has no real authority.
After the uproar, Khamenei said Pezeshkian “consulted” him on the cabinet.
“I confirmed some and emphasised others. More of them I did not know and had no comment on,” the supreme leader said.
What do the cabinet picks show?
To head the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Pezeshkian selected Abbas Araghchi, a career diplomat who has been a primary figure in talks with the West over the past decade and was instrumental in reaching Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with world powers, which remains in limbo after the unilateral US withdrawal in 2018.
Araghchi has said Tehran is open to holding more talks with the West but will prioritise actions over words. He emphasised during an interview on national television on Sunday night that Pezeshkian’s government will at the same time pursue a policy of “limitless support” for the “axis of resistance” of Iran-aligned political and military groups across the region.
Momeni, the interior minister, has a history of working in the antinarcotics department of law enforcement and is believed to have been selected in part to help manage a large number of immigrants who have poured into Iran from neighbouring Afghanistan since the 2021 Taliban takeover. His appointment comes as police chief Ahmadreza Radan has promised to expel two million undocumented immigrants by March.
The defence minister, Aziz Nasirzadeh, a former fighter aircraft pilot and air force commander, has promised to strengthen Iran’s air defences, develop more satellite carriers, build more warships and use more drones. As Iran denies accusations that it gave Russia short-range ballistic missiles, the minister has also promised to at least double military exports in the next four years.
