Hassan Rouhani

Hassan Rouhani is an Iranian Shia cleric, lawyer, and politician who served two terms as President of Iran between August 2013 and August 2021, succeeding Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and preceded by Ebrahim Raisi. Identified with the moderate and pragmatic-reformist current in Iranian politics, he ran on platforms emphasizing economic recovery, civil rights, and the easing of Iran's international isolation.

Before the presidency, Rouhani had a long career inside the Islamic Republic's security and foreign-policy establishment. He was a member of the Supreme National Security Council from its creation in 1989 and served as its Secretary from 1989 to 2005. In that role he led Iran's nuclear negotiating team from 2003 to 2005, producing the Saadabad Agreement with the UK, France, and Germany (the E3) and a temporary suspension of uranium enrichment. He has also been a long-standing member of the Assembly of Experts and the Expediency Discernment Council.

His presidency is most associated with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear agreement signed in Vienna on 14 July 2015 between Iran and the P5+1 (United States, United Kingdom, France, Russia, China, and Germany), endorsed by UN Security Council Resolution 2231. The deal lifted certain sanctions in exchange for caps on uranium enrichment and intrusive IAEA monitoring. Rouhani's foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, was the lead negotiator opposite U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry.

Rouhani won re-election in May 2017 with roughly 57% of the vote against Raisi. His second term was dominated by the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA in May 2018 under President Trump, the subsequent "maximum pressure" sanctions campaign, a sharp devaluation of the rial, the November 2019 fuel-price protests, and the COVID-19 pandemic. He left office in August 2021 and was notably disqualified by the Guardian Council from running for the Assembly of Experts in 2024.