Hassan Rouhani

Overview

Hassan Rouhani is an Iranian cleric and politician who served as president of Iran from 2013 to 2021. His presidency followed three decades in the Islamic Republic’s parliament, military command structure and Supreme National Security Council. He became internationally prominent through negotiations over the nuclear program of Iran, first as chief negotiator during a temporary suspension of enrichment-related activities in 2003 and later as president during the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA. The agreement exchanged restrictions and monitoring of Iran’s nuclear activities for sanctions relief. Rouhani treated relief from economic sanctions as a central objective while defending Iran’s ability to enrich uranium.

Rouhani’s diplomatic style and promises of economic improvement brought him a reputation for moderation, but his political career remained rooted in the Islamic Republic’s clerical and security institutions. Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei controlled the regime’s major decisions and backed the negotiations that Rouhani conducted. Rouhani supported greater funding for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Basij and the Ministry of Intelligence. His government also devoted greater resources to Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria and to Hezbollah, the terrorist organization in Lebanon. His record therefore encompasses both direct engagement with Western governments and sustained support for institutions responsible for repression and regional military activity.

Early life

Rouhani was born on November 12, 1948, in Sorkheh, Iran. He began religious studies at Semnan Seminary in 1960 and moved to Qom Seminary in 1961. Alongside his clerical education, he studied law: he entered the University of Tehran in 1969 and received a bachelor’s degree in judicial law in 1972. He later earned an M.Phil. from Glasgow Caledonian University in 1995 and a doctorate in law there in 1999. This combination of seminary education and legal study preceded his long career at the intersection of clerical politics, state security and diplomacy.

As a young cleric, Rouhani aligned himself with Ruhollah Khomeini in opposition to Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi. Beginning in 1965, he traveled across Iran delivering speeches against the shah’s government. Pre-revolutionary authorities arrested him repeatedly and barred him from speaking publicly. At a November 1977 ceremony in Tehran commemorating Khomeini’s son, Rouhani publicly used the title “Imam” for Khomeini, who was then in exile. After the Iranian Revolution of 1979, Rouhani returned to help consolidate the new Islamic Republic. His early political identity was thus closely tied to Khomeini’s revolutionary movement, long before his later work as a nuclear negotiator.

Career

Rouhani entered Iran’s Majlis in 1980 and served five terms spanning 20 years. He became deputy speaker and headed its defense and foreign policy committees, giving him a role in both legislation and national security oversight. From 1980 to 1983, he also led the supervisory council for Iran’s national radio and television network. His rise took place as the new regime established its institutions and fought the Iran–Iraq War, which began in 1980.

During that war, Rouhani held senior defense posts. He served on the Supreme Defense Council and bodies responsible for supporting the war effort, commanded Iran’s air defense force and held a command role at the Khatam-ol-Anbiya Operation Center. From 1988 to 1989, he served as deputy commander-in-chief of the armed forces. These responsibilities placed him within the regime’s military leadership during the closing phase of the war. They also formed part of the experience he carried into his subsequent work on national security and nuclear policy.

In 1989, Rouhani became Khamenei’s personal representative on the newly established Supreme National Security Council. He served as its first secretary until 2005 and advised Iranian presidents on national security from 1989 to 1997 and again from 2000 to 2005. He joined the Expediency Council in 1991 and headed its political, defense and security committee. Rouhani also won an Assembly of Experts seat for Semnan in 2000 and a Tehran seat in 2006. His positions connected him to the supreme leader, successive presidents and institutions charged with security policy. They help explain why his later diplomatic initiatives depended on Khamenei’s backing rather than presidential authority alone.

Rouhani was involved in nuclear matters well before becoming president. In 1988 or 1989, he sought Chinese help for a 300-megawatt nuclear plant and a uranium enrichment facility in Iran. He traveled to Moscow with Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in June 1989 to negotiate completion of the Bushehr nuclear plant and construction of an enrichment facility. In his 2011 book National Security and Nuclear Diplomacy, a study of roughly one thousand pages, Rouhani described at least 24 years of involvement in Iran’s nuclear work. The book presented nuclear policy as a subject developed through consultation among the regime’s principal centers of power.

Rouhani led Iran’s nuclear negotiating team from 2003 to 2005. In October 2003, Iran agreed during talks with European foreign ministers to suspend uranium enrichment activities and expand international inspection access. The suspension was temporary; it did not represent Rouhani’s acceptance of a permanent end to enrichment. He argued for proceeding cautiously with the program while building public support. When he ran for president a decade later, he explicitly rejected a return to suspension. His earlier negotiating role established him as an experienced diplomat, while his stated position preserved enrichment as an Iranian objective.

Rouhani announced his candidacy in 2013 to succeed term-limited President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. He won the June 14 election with 52 percent of the vote. Economic sanctions weighed heavily on Iran and helped shape both his campaign and the incentive he and Khamenei had to pursue an agreement that would lift them. Three days after his August inauguration, Rouhani called for renewed nuclear negotiations with the P5+1: the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council and Germany. Khamenei’s 2013 endorsement of “heroic flexibility” enabled that diplomatic course while leaving the supreme leader in control of major decisions.

On September 27, 2013, Rouhani spoke by telephone with U.S. President Barack Obama. It was the highest-level direct contact between the two countries since 1979 and marked a significant change in their diplomatic engagement. The conversation did not alter Rouhani’s stated position on enrichment: after his election, he declared the era of suspending it over. His administration sought an agreement that would ease sanctions while retaining an Iranian nuclear program. During negotiations, Rouhani demanded that all economic sanctions be lifted on the first day of a deal’s implementation.

Iran and the P5+1 finalized the JCPOA on July 14, 2015. The agreement limited and subjected parts of Iran’s nuclear program to enhanced monitoring in exchange for nuclear sanctions relief. Rouhani celebrated the agreement as recognition of Iran’s nuclear program. Sanctions relief was central to his case for diplomacy, and its pace remained a concern for his administration after implementation began. At the same time, the agreement did not end his support for nuclear development: after Washington extended the Iran Sanctions Act in December 2016, Rouhani ordered research and development on nuclear propulsion for Iranian vessels.

Rouhani won a second presidential term on May 19, 2017, defeating Ebrahim Raisi with more than 23 million votes to Raisi’s 16 million. On May 8, 2018, the United States withdrew from the JCPOA. Rouhani then pursued talks with the agreement’s remaining parties to preserve it and its economic benefits. As U.S. pressure increased, he threatened to prevent neighboring countries from exporting oil through the Strait of Hormuz. At the 2020 United Nations General Assembly, he thanked governments that rejected Washington’s bid to restore sanctions on Iran and credited Russia and China. His response combined efforts to retain diplomatic support with pressure over sanctions and regional trade.

Ideology and statements

Rouhani’s long association with Khomeini’s movement and Khamenei’s security council distinguished him from opponents seeking fundamental political change. His public case for negotiation emphasized economic relief, international engagement and Iran’s continued nuclear rights. He advocated a more measured diplomatic approach than Ahmadinejad, but his approach operated within the Islamic Republic’s established decision-making system. Khamenei’s support made nuclear negotiations possible; Rouhani’s presidency did not transfer control of the regime’s major security and foreign policy decisions away from the supreme leader.

Rouhani consistently distinguished negotiation from surrendering enrichment. He led the team that accepted a temporary suspension in 2003, rejected renewed suspension in 2013 and celebrated international recognition of Iran’s nuclear program in 2015. On April 9, 2019, he announced installation of a cascade of 20 IR-6 centrifuges at Natanz. That announcement showed continued development of enrichment capacity under his presidency. His policy linked the pursuit of sanctions relief to preservation and advancement of Iran’s nuclear capabilities.

His positions on dissent and state power also form part of his political record. Rouhani supported the 1999 crackdown on Iran’s student movement and, in a speech condemning student dissent, threatened capital punishment. During his presidency, he backed budget increases for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the Basij and the Ministry of Intelligence. He did not dissent when the regime violently suppressed nationwide protests in November 2019. His diplomatic language and pledges of change therefore coexisted with support for the institutions that enforced the regime’s authority.

Role in attacks or conflicts

Rouhani’s military roles during the Iran–Iraq War placed him in the command structure of a conflict that shaped the Islamic Republic’s early decades. After the war, he remained involved in security decisions through the Supreme National Security Council. An Argentine prosecutors’ indictment concerning the 1994 AMIA bombing named Rouhani, then council secretary, in connection with the decision. It also named then-President Rafsanjani, Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Velayati and Intelligence Minister Ali Fallahijan. The indictment is part of the record of the investigation; it does not itself establish a criminal conviction of Rouhani.

As president, Rouhani supported Iran’s security apparatus at home and its allies abroad. In December 2014, he proposed a 33.5 percent increase in military spending for the 2015 budget. His government devoted greater resources to Bashar al-Assad during the Syrian civil war and to Hezbollah, the terrorist organization in Lebanon. He also supported funding increases for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and Basij. These choices connected his administration’s budget and foreign policy to the regime’s coercive institutions and regional military network.

Rouhani’s record during domestic unrest was consequential. State executions rose to around 1,000 in 2015 during his presidency. He remained silent as security forces violently suppressed nationwide protests in November 2019. The scale of executions and the treatment of protesters undercut the idea that a more conciliatory diplomatic style brought political liberalization. Responsibility for the regime’s major decisions remained concentrated around Khamenei and its security institutions, which Rouhani continued to support.

Rouhani also dealt publicly with attacks and confrontations affecting the regime. Following the 2018 attack on a military parade in Ahvaz, he ordered security agencies to identify and pursue those responsible. After the United States killed Qasem Soleimani in January 2020, Rouhani pledged on January 14 that the regime would remember the killing and called for an end to American military presence in the region. Those statements reflected his continuing role as president during a period of confrontation between Iran and the United States.

Death or current status

Rouhani completed his second presidential term in 2021. His presidency ended after two terms, but his record remained relevant to later Iranian governments. The cabinet nominees of President Masoud Pezeshkian included seven former ministers or deputy ministers from Rouhani’s governments, illustrating the continued presence of officials who had served under him in Iran’s political leadership.

Legacy

Rouhani’s presidency is closely associated with the JCPOA and the effort to obtain sanctions relief through direct nuclear diplomacy. His 2013 telephone call with Obama broke a long absence of contact between the countries’ presidents, and the 2015 agreement became the defining international undertaking of his administration. The United States’ 2018 withdrawal tested his strategy; he sought to keep the remaining parties committed while Iran continued nuclear work. His 2019 IR-6 announcement underscored the continuity between his defense of enrichment before the agreement and his nuclear policy afterward.

His broader legacy rests on the combination of diplomacy and institutional continuity. Rouhani emerged from Khomeini’s revolutionary movement, served in wartime command, advised presidents on national security and represented Khamenei on the Supreme National Security Council before entering the presidency. He pursued negotiations and economic change without ending support for the security forces or the regime’s regional allies. His career shows how a senior figure of the Islamic Republic could conduct consequential talks with Western governments while remaining committed to the governing institutions and strategic priorities that shaped Iran’s conduct at home and abroad.