The Guardian Council sacrificed the elected state’s legitimacy to bring a hardline conservative to power. Raisi was not handed a popular mandate as Rouhani had been, and thus his primary focus would be satisfying the desires of the Supreme Leader rather than the public at large.

The Supreme Leader turned his sights on preserving the radical ideological origins of the revolution along with his legacy. On the anniversary of the Islamic Republic’s founding, in February 2019, Khamenei laid out his vision in a manifesto titled the “Second Phase of the Revolution,” focusing on the economy in the context of U.S. sanctions rather than cultural issues.

The 2017 Iranian presidential elections followed shortly before the U.S. election. During his reelection campaign, Rouhani sought to retain the moderate and reformist vote that he had received four years earlier. So he advocated for fewer restrictions on political and social life.

Khamenei long opposed negotiating with Western powers, but he allowed Rouhani to pursue his foreign policy proposal of warmer ties with the West, partly because international sanctions against his regime had ravaged the country’s economy. Khamenei hedged and warned against trusting the United States, while at the same time lending tacit approval to the effort.