Pezeshkian, a president to bring Iran out of isolation

That the vast majority of Iran's population is fed up with the theocratic regime it has been suffering for half a century, is shown by the numerous signs that, through demonstrations, clandestine surveys and numerous denunciations, are collected by Western intelligence services.

That this theocratic regime resists change is public and notorious. And that the Islamic Revolutionary Guard may end up using its immense accumulated power to impose a less theocratic military dictatorship is a certain possibility for the evolution of the regime.

But in the meantime, Iran has just elected a new president: Masoud Pezeshkian, a 69-year-old physician, representative of the less radical current. He is classically classified as a reformist, but in a regime as harsh as the Iranian one, let us leave him as a milder version of the iron control advocated by the most radical, among whom the guide of the Revolution, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, obviously stands out.

Collector of more than 16 million votes, Pezeshkian far surpassed the 13 million obtained by his opponent, the Islamic extremist Said Jalili, favorite of the iron circle of the supreme leader. A second and definitive electoral round, in which the mobilization of the electorate greatly exceeded that of the first round, but which did not even manage to surpass half of the electorate, the participation remaining at 49.8% of the same.

The defeated Jalili, who was the Iranian negotiator between 2007 and 2013 of the nuclear agreement with the United States and the European Union, became its staunchest detractor and opponent when said agreement was concluded in 2015, with the consequent displeasure of Israel, which always warned that it would never tolerate that Tehran would come to have the atomic weapon.

Jalili, moreover, is an uncompromising defender of Islamic morality and, consequently, of the extremely harsh punishments, including death, against those who transgress the strict rules, which are vigorously monitored by the Morality Police and punished with implacable rigor by the regime's judges.

Without, according to the parameters of democracy, qualifying him as a true reformist, Masoud Pezeshkian has given rise to hope by proclaiming, as soon as he was aware of his triumph, his intention to establish "constructive relations" with the United States, the regime's eternal enemy along with Israel, "to bring Iran out of its isolation".

It is not much, of course, but at least the new Iranian president does not inaugurate his mandate with the requisitions and harshness of his predecessor, Ebrahim Raisi, nicknamed "the butcher of Tehran" for his role in the massacre of 30,000 opponents ordered by the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ruhollah Khomeini, who died in a helicopter accident on May 19.

Although the major decisions are dictated by the leader of the Revolution, the president will be able, in addition to making numerous appointments and easing the persecution and the rigor of moral standards, at least to make his voice heard also in the conflicts in which Iran is involved, namely Gaza, Lebanon and Yemen.

In addition to the major powers, the steps taken by Pezeshkian will be closely watched by all the Gulf countries, as well as by Israel, to whom Pezeshkian himself does not lift the condemnation to disappear that remains the watchword of his regime.

Those who do not have the slightest confidence that anything will change in Iran are the opponents of the theocracy and the exiles of the Diaspora, who called for a boycott of the two rounds of these presidential elections, under the argument that both the ultra-conservative Jalili and the supposedly reformist Masoud are two sides of the same coin.

The most urgent task of Masoud's government will be to find resources to alleviate the country's battered economy, accentuated by the international sanctions, imposed both since the negotiations on the nuclear issue entered into deadlock, and in view of the evidence of the direct supply of missiles and drones to Hamas. Hezbollah and the Yemeni Houthis.

The international sanctions will not be lifted if the Iranian regime shows no clear signs of renouncing an escalation of tension on the part of the organizations it supplies, supports and teledirects.