Iran

The Nuclear Challenge

Prior to the election dispute, the issue concerning Iran that has drawn the most international concern has been Iran's nuclear program. Mr. Ahmadinejad has used it to rally support internally by defiance of the West and the United States.

In 2003, under President Khatami, Iran admitted that it had been clandestinely pursuing an atomic program and agreed to suspend it. In 2006, under President Ahmadinejad, the country restarted a nuclear research program that it insisted was purely for peaceful purposes.

It defied a series of Security Council resolutions calling for a halt, and rebuffed diplomatic overtures from Europe and the United States. In May 2007 international inspectors reported that the country's scientists had mastered the process of enrichment, in which uranium is concentrated to the levels needed for power generation or, eventually, for an atomic bomb.

Late that year, American intelligence agencies issued a new National Intelligence Estimate that concluded that the weapons portion of the Iranian nuclear program remained on hold. Contradicting the assessment made in 2005, the report stated that the Iranian government did not appear determined to obtain nuclear weapons, although it said Iran's intentions were unclear, and that the country probably could not produce a bomb until the middle of the next decade.

Even so, American officials and international inspectors are concerned that Iran seems to have made significant progress in the three technologies necessary to field an effective nuclear weapon: enriching uranium to weapons grade; developing a missile capable of reaching Israel and parts of Western Europe; and designing a warhead that will fit on the missile.

The greatest mystery surrounds the warhead program, which intelligence agencies said in late 2007 had been halted at the end of 2003. It is unclear whether Iran has restarted its weaponization program.

Relations with the U.S. and Israel

Mr. Ahmadinejad has often denounced Israel. In 2008, President Bush deflected a secret request by Israel for specialized bunker-busting bombs it wanted for an attack on Iran's main nuclear complex and told the Israelis that he had authorized new covert action intended to sabotage Iran's suspected effort to develop nuclear weapons, according to senior American and foreign officials.

Tensions between Washington and Tehran -- which go back many decades, from Washington's participation in the 1953 coup that installed the shah, to the seizure of American diplomats in 1979 after the shah fell to an Islamic revolution -- also rose in 2007 and 2008 over Iran's involvement in Iraq. American military officials accused elements of Iran's Revolutionary Guard of supplying Shiite militants in Iraq with powerful roadside bombs to use against American forces.

During the 2008 American presidential campaign, Barack Obama broke with rival candidates to say he favored unconditional talks with Iran, though he condemned its nuclear program. In his first interview after taking office, on Al Arabiya television, an Arabic-language channel based in Dubai, Mr. Obama said that "if countries like Iran are willing to unclench their fist, they will find an extended hand from us."

President Ahmadinejad responded by calling for an apology for decades of American misdeeds, but did not explicitly reject the overture. The move signaled the start of a long-delayed war-or-peace drama that may help define the Obama administration's plans to remake America's approach to diplomacy, but could cause problems between the U.S. and Israel.

During the protests that followed the disputed 2009 election, Mr. Obama called violence against demonstrators "outrageous'' and "appalling,'' but stressed that the United States would still seek to engage Iran's new government in talks over the nuclear program. On July 6, Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. said the United States "cannot dictate'' to Israel whether or not it should take action against Iran's nuclear sites.

The 2009 Presidential Campaign

The major candidates in the hotly disputed 2009 presidential election were the incumbent, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Mir Hussein Moussavi, a former prime minister.

Mr. Moussavi served as prime minister from 1980 to 1988. He is well remembered by many Iranians for managing the country during its eight-year war with Iraq, and for introducing food rationing. An architect and painter, he has not held a government post since the Constitution was amended to eliminate the position of prime minister in 1989.

Mr. Ahmadinejad was elected president of Iran in June 2005 on a mandate to distribute the country's growing oil income among the poor. The son of a blacksmith, he was an unknown figure in the country's politics who had only served as Tehran's mayor for two years and earlier as a provincial governor for four years. But with the support of the country's religious and military circles -- who had been frustrated with the policies of Mr. Khatami, his moderate predecessor, Mr. Ahmadinejad appealed to a large rural constituency who voted for him in hope for economic change.

But Mr. Ahmadinejad soon became known on the international stage as the face of Iran's defiance over its nuclear program and hostility towards Israel. He shocked the world when he called the Holocaust a "myth' and repeated an old slogan from the early days of the 1979 revolution, saying "Israel must be wiped off the map."

In the last few years, the country has been hit by high inflation, soaring unemployment and unrest. In recent months, lower export prices of oil lessened Mr. Ahmadinejad's popularity. In the course of the campaign, the candidates exchanged accusations that were extraordinarily strong for Iranian politics.

A Disputed Election and Its Violent Aftermath

Before the voting, supporters of Mr. Moussavi were hopeful, given the large and energetic crowds that had been turning out at his rallies. But early on the morning of  June 13, only two hours after polls had closed from the previous day's voting, Mr. Ahmadinejad was declared the winner, with 63 percent of the vote to 35 percent for Mr. Moussavi.

Mr. Moussavi and a number of other losing candidates denounced the results and rallies were held in cities across the country. Ayatollah Khamenei initially swung between statements in support of Mr. Ahmadinejad and conciliatory gestures. He instructed the powerful Guardian Council to examine opposition complaints of widespread electoral irregularities.

But the council, in its ruling the following day, said the law prevented it from voiding the last vote and holding a new one, and said it was prepared to order only a partial recount. Mr. Moussavi and other opponents of Mr. Admadinejad rejected the proposal.

On Friday, June 19, after a week of large protests and skirmishes between demonstrators and security forces, Ayatollah Khamanei gave an angry sermon in which he warned of violence if dissent continued. Over the weekend the police and the Basiji militia moved more aggressively to break up rallies, using guns, clubs, tear gas and water cannons. In the days that followed, public protests dwindled, though many Tehran residents revived the practice, dating from the days before the fall of the Shah, of taking to their rooftops at 10 pm to shout "God is great!" and "Down with the dictator!"

Details of the street clashes, the number of deaths and the number of political opponents were sketchy, as the regime cracked down on journalists and moved to block as much cell-phone, text-messaging and Internet traffic as possible, though word filtered out, often through posts on Twitter.

The Guardian Council acknowledged that the number of votes cast in 50 cities exceeded the actual number of voters by three million, but insisted that the discrepancies did not violate Iranian law or affect the outcome of the election.

Opponents maintained their defiance, calling for continued protests and the release of detainees.  A few conservatives have expressed revulsion at the sight of unarmed protesters being beaten, even shot, by government forces. Only 105 out of the 290 members of Parliament took part in a victory celebration for Mr. Ahmadinejad on June 23, newspapers reported two days later. The absence of so many lawmakers, including the speaker, Ali Larijani, a powerful conservative, was striking. In early July, an influential clerical association based in the city of Qum, the center of the country's spiritual life, called the new government illegitimate.

Since the election, Mr. Rafsanjani, a powerful figure who leads two important state institutions, the Expediency Council and the Assembly of Experts and who had backed Mr. Moussavi, had remained silent, feeding speculation about whether he was working behind the scenes to broker a compromise. Then on July 17, with tens of thousands of protesters chanting in the streets around Tehran University, where he was speaking, he cast aside his usual caution and called for new efforts to defuse a "crisis'' that "is now consuming us.''

He called for the release of people arrested during the turmoil and a loosening of the strict controls placed on the media, declaring that "a large group of Iranians'' has doubt about the election outcome. Mr. Khatami, the moderate leader who was succeeded by Mr. Ahmadinejad, boldly challenged the government by calling for a referendum on its legitimacy.

With a mass trial of more than 100 alleged dissidents under way, Mr. Ahmadinejad was formally endorsed as Iran's leader for a second term by Mr. Khameni. But  prominent opponents stayed away from the event, news reports said. The ceremony came one day after state television broadcast a chilling segment of the mass trial in which two defendants - both prominent reform figures - said they had "changed" since being arrested and disputed widespread claims that their publicized confessions had been coerced through torture. Mr. Moussavi said those responsible for the trial "are disgracing the political establishment," according to a statement on his Web site. When Mr. Ahmadinejad was sworn in on Aug. 6 for a second term, his adversaries boycotted the ceremony and a vast deployment of police officers stood guard outside.

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