Hassan Rouhani entered Iran’s presidency in August 2013 as a relative moderate who promised to ease his country’s isolation through diplomacy. By the time he left office eight years later, his vision lay in ruins. The deal he championed with world powers had unraveled, hardliners had seized control of the government, and his own political legacy had become a cautionary example of how structural realities inside the Islamic Republic can defeat any single leader’s ambitions.
A Fragile Agreement That Briefly Worked
The centerpiece of Rouhani’s tenure was the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, known as the JCPOA, signed in Vienna on July 14, 2015. Under the accord, Iran agreed to curb its nuclear program by limiting uranium enrichment, reducing its stockpile of enriched material, and granting international inspectors access to its nuclear sites.
In exchange, sanctions imposed by the United Nations, the European Union, and the United States were lifted on many fronts. Other U.S. penalties remained in place, targeting Iran’s ballistic missile work and its support for armed groups in the region. For a period after the deal took effect in early 2016, it appeared to deliver what its supporters had promised: a verifiable brake on Iran’s nuclear activities without resorting to military conflict.
Critics, including Israel, Saudi Arabia, and many Republican lawmakers in Washington, argued that the JCPOA did nothing to address Iran’s ballistic missile program or its regional interventions. They saw it as a flawed arrangement that left fundamental threats unanswered.
Then came May 2018. The Trump administration withdrew from the agreement, asserting that the JCPOA failed to curb Iran’s missile development and its destabilizing behavior across the Middle East. Washington reimposed sweeping economic sanctions, cutting off much of Iran’s access to the global financial system.
That move effectively eliminated the economic relief Tehran had been counting on.
Rouhani’s Political Standing Collapses
The U.S. withdrawal set off a chain of events that rapidly eroded Rouhani’s authority. Hardliners inside Iran, who had always opposed the nuclear deal, seized on its collapse as evidence that engagement with the West was futile. They pressed their advantage, and Rouhani found himself losing control of the narrative both at home and abroad.
Tensions escalated sharply in June 2019. On June 20, Iran shot down a U.S. RQ-4A Global Hawk drone.
The Trump administration ordered a retaliatory military strike but then called it off at the last minute. Separately, a series of attacks on oil tankers in the Gulf took place that same month. Rouhani denied Iranian involvement and instead blamed the United States for escalating hostilities in the region.
The pattern was unmistakable: Iran’s moderate president could no longer steer events or credibly claim to represent a unified government. Rouhani’s presidency ended with the election of Ebrahim Raisi in June 2021.
Raisi, a hardliner backed by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, won in a low-turnout election that many Iranians viewed as rigged. For Rouhani, it was a bitter conclusion to eight years of attempting to open Iran to the world. He left office on August 3, 2021, as a diminished figure whose signature achievement had been dismantled.
Lessons for Future Diplomacy
For American readers, Rouhani’s trajectory offers a practical reminder of the limits of any diplomatic engagement with Iran. Even when the regime produces a relative moderate, the structural reality of the Iranian system—where the Supreme Leader holds ultimate power—dramatically constrains what any president can achieve. The JCPOA was a fragile arrangement, and once the United States withdrew from it, the whole framework collapsed.
The history of the deal itself underscores these limits. Negotiations began in late 2013 with an interim accord, then continued for more than a year before a framework was reached in the spring of 2015.
The final text was signed that July. Under the deal, Iran agreed to limit enrichment and allow inspections in return for sanctions relief. But critics warned that the arrangement did not address Iran’s ballistic missile work or its activities in the region. Supporters maintained it was the best available tool to block Iran from building a nuclear bomb without war.
After the U.S. withdrawal, Iran responded by gradually exceeding the deal’s limits on enrichment. Efforts to revive the agreement have repeatedly stalled.
The JCPOA remains a central test of whether diplomacy or confrontation will define the standoff between Iran and the West. Its fate directly affects energy markets, regional security, and the risk of a new nuclear crisis. For any future negotiations, the practical upshot is clear: no agreement with Iran can succeed unless it accounts for the fact that the president is not the real decision-maker in Tehran.
