Pezeshkian Approved as Iranian President by the Supreme Leader

Masoud Pezeshkian was officially approved as the Iran’s president by the country’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Earlier in July, Pezeshkian secured the majority of votes in the second round of election on the platform of a moderate foreign diplomacy and changing local approaches.

Relatively moderate Pezeshkian will take power two days later after swearing into the office before the lawmakers, coinciding with a rise in hostilities in the region. The multiple-front battles of Israel, which involves Hamas in Gaza, Houthi in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon, has sparked fears of a full-scale regional war.

Iran has cautioned Israel, its fiercest adversary, against what it described as any new expedition in Lebanese soils. The warning was issued after 12 people were killed by a missile strike on a football field in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights a day earlier, which Israeli authorities attributed to Hezbollah. Hezbollah refuted any involvement in the attack.

The authorization of Iranian leader for Pezeshkian came a month after the new president was elected by the majority of people in Iran. The supreme leader of Iran reaffirmed Iran’s a decades-old anti-Israel position in an address given thereafter. In his address, Khamenei declared that, “The Israel has no legal basis as a governance, it is a criminal organization, a party of murderers, and a terrorist group.” In addition, he commended Hamas, an Islamist group in Palestine, for their defiance of Israeli conduct in Gaza.

The success of Pezeshkian and his takeover of power raised expectations of a warming in Iran’s tense ties with western countries, which might pave the way for alleviating its nuclear conflict with major powers. Pezeshkian was elected into office in an interim election after former president Ebrahim Raisi died in a helicopter crash about a month earlier. According to Iranian constitution, there is no definite deputy for the president and the loss of a president under any scenario necessitates holding an interim election in less than 50 days.