Biden and Putin Will Discuss Iran

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: So, let’s just first ask about Iran itself, the eternal global boogeyman, let’s say. Obviously, there’s never been a Western-style democracy there. But people had some kind of diversity of choice. Not this time. It looks like it’s all cooked up to put a hard-liner back in power. Is that how you see it? Is Raisi a shoo-in?

ABBAS MILANI, DIRECTOR OF IRANIAN STUDIES, STANFORD UNIVERSITY: I think Raisi is a shoo-in. And I think, in the past, there have been almost always engineered elections, the 2009 being the most infamous. But I don’t think there has ever been an election that is so clearly manufactured to create Mr. Raisi, eliminate anyone who could potentially offer any challenge to him, and align him for what is next to come. Whether it is just the presidency or whether they’re, in fact, grooming him to be the successor to Khamenei I think remains to be seen, but it is a very consequential, but also profoundly farcical election.

AMANPOUR: The last consequential election was 1997, when, by surprise — at least it caught the Iranian political class by surprise — a reformist president, Khatami, won. And we saw some actual differences enacted, up to a point. Tell people who have never heard of Ebrahim Raisi who he is, why it matters, and what it means if the whole system is wrapped up now in the conservative hard-line power.

MILANI: Ebrahim Raisi has been in the judiciary the entire career that he’s had, for — almost for 40 years. He has been everything from a prosecutor to the head of the judiciary. He is most infamous for having been part of a team of four so-called judges who sent about 4,000 people within the span of three months on the fatwa of Ayatollah Khomeini. These were people who were serving time already in prison. There are very few judges who have as dark of a past as he has. I’m not sure he can travel to many countries in the world because there might well be actions against him. He certainly was accused by the person who was designated to succeed Ayatollah Khomeini, Mr. Montazeri, as a criminal. He called him in a meeting — the tape of the meeting exists. He says: You have brought shame to this regime. You have brought shame to Islam. So he is as infamous as you can get. But he’s also a docile soldier of Mr. Khamenei. And I think that’s the reason they have picked him. He is very conservative, as you suggested. And he’s also very willing to use power to suppress dissent, and he is very much anti-Western.