New President in Iran

[Jacob]

Allegedly a reformist Cleric: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22924038

Any thoughts on how that might change things?

[CountDeMoney]

Any thoughts on how that might change things?

Late night TV jokes won't be as funny.

[Barrister]

Allegedly a reformist Cleric: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22924038

Any thoughts on how that might change things?

Iran had a reformist President back in the 90s - Rafsanjani.

Ultimate power resides with the 'Supreme Leader' Ali Khamenei.

I predict little will change.

[Sheilbh]

After eight year of Ahmedinejad being used to demonstrate why Iran's a threat, we'll be reminded for the next four years that the Iranian President doesn't really have any significant powers.

[Richard Hakluyt]

It is amazing that despite having the title "Supreme Leader" Khamenei has not realised that he is one of the bad guys 

[Josquius]

He's not quite a reformist, he's a moderate. The reformist guy withdrew from the race and told all of his supporters to back the moderate instead so as to avoid splitting the vote and letting the crazies win.

Even if it doesn't practically mean too much power transfers it does at least represent a bit of a reset and opens the door for improved relations where that just wasn't an option with Ahmadontneedtoattempttospellhisnameanymoredad.

[Liep]

Ahmadontneedtoattempttospellhisnameanymoredad.

Ahmadinnerjacket?

[Solmyr]

Ahmadontneedtoattempttospellhisnameanymoredad.

Ahmadinnerjacket?

Derkaderkamohammedjihad.

Now Languish should get on those last few CIA watchlists it was not on yet.

[CountDeMoney]

Iran had a reformist President back in the 90s - Rafsanjani.

Ultimate power resides with the 'Supreme Leader' Ali Khamenei.

I predict little will change.

The only thing that will change is the amplification of the whole "zomg teh Iranians are changing from teh inside they're so young and stuff" bullshit from the Persiapologists again.

[Cecil]

Iran had a reformist President back in the 90s - Rafsanjani.

Ultimate power resides with the 'Supreme Leader' Ali Khamenei.

I predict little will change.

The only thing that will change is the amplification of the whole "zomg teh Iranians are changing from teh inside they're so young and stuff" bullshit from the Persiapologists again.

Maybe, but this time from what I´ve read from the idiot journos over here even they are decidedly sceptical about this guy unlike previous times when they practically splurged themselves. Maybe they have decided to dial down they "OMG liberuhl revolution" rhetoric a tad after have been made into absolute fools more than a few times after the so called "arab spring" but I guess that would be overly optimistic of me. 

[OttoVonBismarck]

I don't expect any immediate change, but I do think it's a mildly positive development. Ultimate power does reside in the Supreme Leader, and he regularly uses that power to politically outmaneuver the sitting President whenever he has a problem with him (Ahmadinejad despite being a hard liner was on poor terms with the Supreme Leader.) At the same time, Iran legitimately does give a lot of "operational control" day-to-day to the sitting President, so even when the sitting President has political issues with the Supreme Leader they still wield some level of independent power just from their operational position.

For whatever reason the clerics that are the true power base in Iran are deeply concerned about certain aspects of maintaining this concept of the democratic legitimacy of Iran. They basically want Iran to be a place where people feel like their vote matters, but where the clerics can ultimately stop anything from happening they really don't like. I think of it sort of like semi-democratic Western societies from 150-250 years ago (think European countries where the semi-democratically elected legislature had a decent bit of power but the monarchy or landed nobility still retained a lot of ability to stop anything it didn't like from happening.)

So that being said I would not be surprised if on at least some issues the Supreme Leader allows the moderate President to have influence. Issues like the nuclear situation though, Khamenei has basically drawn his line in the sand on that and at least claims there will never be compromise. Because the Supreme Leader is selected by clerics and the clerics are mostly hard liners, and because they control all the real military power (whose leaders are mostly hard liners) any true revolution is unlikely to happen unless Iran devolves into a basically unstable/ungovernable society (unlikely.) I basically think any real reform in Iran will only happen if larger numbers of the clerical elite are more moderate in outlook--incidentally the newly elected President is a more moderate cleric.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Maybe, but this time from what I´ve read from the idiot journos over here even they are decidedly sceptical about this guy unlike previous times when they practically splurged themselves. Maybe they have decided to dial down they "OMG liberuhl revolution" rhetoric a tad after have been made into absolute fools more than a few times after the so called "arab spring" but I guess that would be overly optimistic of me. 

I think what people will see is the moderates in Iran are still hardcore Muslim fundamentalists with all the problems that entails, but they're adopting a viewpoint of "let's keep that Muslim stuff, but let's also try to figure out a way to do that while having a properly functioning economy and maybe some sort of foreign policy that doesn't cripple our trade and cause massive inflation and lack of access to many basic quality of life products." Truly liberal style activists in Iran who want a more liberal/secular society, some of the people behind the "Green Revolution" are a true minority and are unlikely to ever have real power in Iran within the lifetime of anyone over the age of 25-30 today.

[Viking]

meh.. the "real" reform candidate dropped out after getting advice from previous "real" reform president Khatami.  This guy here was the nuclear negotiator so he has history of duplicity, lies and obfuscation. He's come out with some bland platitudes about how he would prefer it if we were nice to each other. I suppose that will earn him a 4 year period of grace where he doesn't have to do anything while the useful idiots blame Obama for the lack of progress. He'll get another 4 years of grace (if he even gets another 4 years) where the useful idiots will blame Clinton for Obama's unwillingness to talk.

The president doesn't have any real power. He is a face to the world. I expect he will succeed as well as Khatami. The thing is that the issues at the core of the conflict are real. They are not mere mis-understandings that once discussed reasonable people can work out. The fact remains that the leadership of Iran does not accept the rules and norms of statecraft that have defined the world since the treaty of westphalia and later the charter of the united nations.

[OttoVonBismarck]

meh.. the "real" reform candidate dropped out after getting advice from previous "real" reform president Khatami.  This guy here was the nuclear negotiator so he has history of duplicity, lies and obfuscation. He's come out with some bland platitudes about how he would prefer it if we were nice to each other. I suppose that will earn him a 4 year period of grace where he doesn't have to do anything while the useful idiots blame Obama for the lack of progress. He'll get another 4 years of grace (if he even gets another 4 years) where the useful idiots will blame Clinton for Obama's unwillingness to talk.

The president doesn't have any real power. He is a face to the world. I expect he will succeed as well as Khatami. The thing is that the issues at the core of the conflict are real. They are not mere mis-understandings that once discussed reasonable people can work out. The fact remains that the leadership of Iran does not accept the rules and norms of statecraft that have defined the world since the treaty of westphalia and later the charter of the united nations.

That's not actually true in terms of the President having no power. The President has power, he just can be trumped at any time by the Supreme Leader. It's akin to the Prime Minister in the 18th century UK, where the monarch actually could still basically dismiss him and refuse to accept a PM he didn't agree with (meaning the monarch still retained most theoretical power.) But just like in the 18th century UK the PM still wielded considerable "day-to-day" power and that's true in Iran. The mechanism of government in Iran means the Supreme Leader has direct control of the military which is his ultimate practical trump card, and he has several checking powers on the legal powers of all other parts of government (his legal/political trump card) but outside of the military the Supreme Leader doesn't run the bureaucracy or really any part of government. So the President has legitimate power because he does run all the government aside from the military.

Where the new President is specifically a moderate is he seems open to the concept of improving Iran's economy, which he links to some level of foreign relations normalization, as being more important than being intractable with the rest of the world. He's not moderate by our standards, and on all the Muslim fundamentalist issues he really is a hard line in terms of social policy etc--but he appears to actually want Iran to have a prosperous economy and he understands some level of rapprochement with the international community will be required for that to happen. The more hard line clerics realize that most likely, but don't care, and don't care that Iran went from being somewhat cosmopolitan to basically a shit hole where it's now even difficult to get prescription medications because of the most recent sanctions.

[Viking]

Thats why I said

"doesn't have any real power" as opposed to "doesn't have any power" or "has no power". He is the one that carries out the will of the supreme leader. He has control over how he does it and which parts of the will get emphasized.