His ascension to power and replacing outgoing President Hassan Rouhani has brought negotiations between the Islamic Republic, the US and the world powers to a standstill now for over two months with no clear end in sight.
Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei remains the final word in the country, especially on major strategic issues like the nuclear negotiations.
But Khamenei lined up support for Raisi to be elected president; and Raisi is rumored to be his choice as his successor given that he is 82 and has had health problems in recent years.
Both US and Iranian officials have given unclear messages about whether nuclear negotiations will restart once Raisi takes power, whether this may wait multiple months or whether new concessions Raisi may demand will end the negotiations.
Negotiations appeared to progress in Vienna during multiple rounds for much of April and May.
But on May 21, a deal between the IAEA and Iran for continuing nuclear inspections expired, and none of the nuclear talks that followed that date achieved any progress.
Rouhani has publicly accused Raisi’s hard-liner camp of blocking a deal with the US which he said could have been obtained before ending his eight years and two terms in office.
Meanwhile, Raisi both before and after his election in mid-June expressed a readiness to return Tehran to the 2015 JCPOA nuclear deal limitations, but has not responded to specific US positions on the issue.
According to Iranian state TV, Khamenei on Wednesday said: “The Americans acted completely cowardly and maliciously.”
“They once violated the nuclear deal at no cost by exiting it. Now they explicitly say that they cannot give guarantees that it would not happen again,” added Khamenei.
Iranian officials have repeatedly demanded that the US “compensate” the country for Washington pulling out of the deal in 2018 with guarantees to prevent a future similar unilateral pullout.
A US State Department spokesperson responded that President Joe Biden’s administration “has been sincere and steadfast in pursuing a path of meaningful diplomacy to achieve a mutual return to compliance” with the agreement.
The US has rejected giving Tehran the guarantees it seeks, instead focusing on leaving its options open to press the Islamic Republic into a “longer and stronger” deal after returning to the JCPOA.
Raisi was born in December 1960 in the city of Mashhad.
Since the early 1980s, he has filled a series of positions in the judicial system, including Tehran prosecutor, head of the General Inspection Office of the judicial authority, first deputy chief justice, and attorney-general.
Raisi has had problems with the reformist camp of Iranians due to his involvement in the mass executions of political prisoners in 1988.
In 2016, he was appointed by the Supreme Leader as chairman of the Astan Quds Razavi foundation in Mashhad, a powerful foundation that controls significant Islamic trusts, a wide range of assets and large budgets.
Besides those posts, Raisi serves as a member of the Expediency Council, and as deputy chairman of the Assembly of Experts, which is responsible for overseeing the Supreme Leader’s activity, appointing his successor and even potentially removing him from office if he is found unfit to continue to serve.
Raisi lost the 2017 presidential election race to Rouhani, but finished a strong enough second to make him the clear favorite this past June, especially once the Guardian Council disqualified two major potential contenders.
Israel has tried to use Raisi’s hard-line image and past involvement in mass executions to undermine momentum for trusting Iran regarding JCPOA related issues.