It's a political fact of life in Iran, where the president is squarely on the world stage but holds little power to sway key policies such as Tehran's nuclear development or relations with the West. Yet as the six candidates - including a current and former nuclear negotiator - wrapped up their campaigns Wednesday, perhaps no issues define their immediate challenges more than the nuclear standoff with Washington and its allies and the related economic sanctions strangling Iran's economy.
The overall decisions are firmly in the hands of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and the hugely powerful Revolutionary Guard. That message was reinforced after the final presidential debate last week when Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi thanked the candidates for their "perspectives" but noted they "will not impact Iran's foreign policy after the election." What Iran's next president can potentially influence, however, is the tone and tactics with world powers if stalemated nuclear talks resume at some point after a successor is picked for the firebrand President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
The stakes could rise quickly. Negotiations had been put on hold until after Friday's election, but pressure could mount to resume the talks even before the new president-elect officially takes over in August. The next round would mark a crossroads: Either show progress or risk escalating calls by some in Israel and the West for military action. "With the nuclear program, it's about style over substance for Iran's president," said Sami al-Faraj, director of the Kuwait Center for Strategic Studies. "He can't direct policy, but can help package it by offering their views to the supreme leader. The nuclear talks are the main forum for this."
One side is current nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, who publicly endorses a hardline stance that demands the West make the first move with major concessions such as lifting painful sanctions. "Our country won't surrender to their demands," Jalili was quoted as saying last week. Another view comes from reformist-backed candidate Hasan Rowhani, Iran's chief nuclear envoy from 2003-2005, who complains that Iran's combative style has worked against the country. "It's very good to see (nuclear) centrifuges rotating, but only when people could make ends meet and when factories and industry could run smoothly," Rowhani said in the debate Saturday. "All our problems are because all efforts were not made to prevent the (nuclear) dossier from being sent to the (U.N.) Security Council."
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here is photo of that poor woman before she was murdered
