he got where he is by being a yes man. he is not a statesman with a great deal of economic experience, and that suggests that he will be managed more directly by the supreme leader and his decisions will devolve for towards him. i think the biden administration made the correct decision to not try to influence those elections, and now we re aiming for a mid-july date for a possible agreement, and if that comes, raisi stands to benefit from some degree of economic opening in iran, and then we ll see what the mood of the public would be at that point in time. we have to hend it on that note. vali, thank you so much. robin wright, you both created illumination on this topic. we ll be back with a taliban spokesman. and you have thinkorswim mobile-
minister who has hundreds of thousands of votes from his constituency rather than a president who could stand up to the supreme leader on key political foreign policy or domestic issues on the basis of having tens of millions of votes. so this election will decide an awful lot about what happens inside iran and in its engagement with the outside world. and, vali, would it be fair to say that one important backdrop here is the failure of the reformists? i sometimes think that americans think they have too much influence or they exaggerate the influence they have on the world, but in this case it seems to me that president rouhani came into office, and the big agenda was, i m going to make peace with the west, we re going to get sanctions lifted and iran is going to grow, the middle class is going to grow, and the fact that the united states pulled out, doubled down on sanctions, put maximum pressure
within the system about how much control the state had and how much latitude it would give people to voice their opinions in public. and so i think this is going to be a difficult moment for president biden who has made human rights an issue of his presidency, trying to deal with iran to get that final hurdle in renewing the nuclear deal, and even more so dealing with issues after that on iran s missiles, its meddling in the middle east, its abysmal human rights record will be hard for this president. he is likely to come under criticism at home, and it will make is very hard for him to do a deal with the iranians. vali, we often forget in these moments about the iranian people. iran is a country with actual ordinary people. how tough is all this how tough does all this make life
be a difficult moment for president biden who has made human rights an issue of his presidency, trying to deal with iran to get that final hurdle in renewing the nuclear deal, and even more so dealing with issues after that on iran s missiles, its meddling in the middle east, its abysmal human rights record will be hard for this president. he is likely to come under criticism at home, and it will make is very hard for him to do a deal with the iranians. vali, we often forget in these moments about the iranian people. iran is a country with actual ordinary people. how tough is all this how tough does all this make life for iranians who are already suffering one of the worst responses to covid, right? i think in terms of social
decide when there are disputes. is iran, first and foremost, a republic, or is it first and foremost an islamic state? and one of the things it looks like will happen next is that the supreme leader will move to reform the system to engage in constitutional changes that may introduce a parliamentary system where you have a much weaker government with only a prime minister who has hundreds of thousands of votes from his constituency rather than a president who could stand up to the supreme leader on key political foreign policy or domestic issues on the basis of having tens of millions of votes. so this election will decide an awful lot about what happens inside iran and in its engagement with the outside world. and, vali, would it be fair