Iran

The Nuclear Challenge

Mr. Ahmadinejad has sought to rally support by defiance of the West and the United States over Iran's nuclear program. In 2003, under President Khatami, Iran admitted that it had been cladestinely pursuing an atomic program and agreed to suspend it. In 2006, 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.

On May 20, 2009, Iran test fired an upgraded surface-to-surface missile with a range of about 1,200 miles. The reported range of the Sejil-2 missile would put it within striking distance of Israel and of American bases in the Persian Gulf. The launch would appear to represent Iran's first successful test of a solid-fuel missile, which would be much more mobile and easier to hide than their current generation of liquid-fueled rockets. Until now, the country's longest-range missile has been the liquid-fueled Shahab-3, which is based on a design that it obtained from North Korea.

American officials and international inspectors are concerned that Iran seems to have made significant progress in the three technonologies 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.

The 2009 Presidential Election

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's  moderate views won him support from other reformers in Iran, including former President Mohammad Khatami. Public rallies in his support were of unexpected size and enthusiasm. The leading candidates exchanged accusations that were extraordinarily fierce for Iranian politics.

In early June, the presidential campaign reached a level of passion and acrimony almost unheard of in Iran. In part, that appeared to be because of a surge of energy in Mr. Moussavi's campaign. Rallies for Mr. Moussavi drew tens of thousands of people, and an unofficial poll suggested his support had markedly increased, with 54 percent of respondents saying they would vote for him compared with 39 percent for Mr. Ahmadinejad.

Many Iranians said the campaign's raucous tone was due largely to Mr. Ahmadinejad's unexpectedly fierce rhetorical attacks, which infuriated his rivals and their supporters, and drew some blistering ripostes.

Many observers said a critical moment was a nationally televised debate on June 3, in which the president opened with a furious attack on Mr. Moussavi. Mr. Ahmadinejad seemed to spare no one, accusing his conservative and liberal opponents of being corrupt. The most shocking thrust, to some viewers, was when he held up a document with a small picture of Mr. Moussavi's wife, Zahra Rahnavard, and asked him in a derisive tone, "Do you know this woman?" Mr. Ahmadinejad then accused Ms. Rahnavard - a respected professor of political science - of entering a graduate program without taking the entrance exam and other, lesser violations of university policy. Ms. Rahnavard held a news conference in which she threatened to sue if Mr. Ahmadinejad did not apologize.

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.

After Mr. Moussavi announced in March 2009 that he intended to stand in the June election, Mr. Khatami, a leading moderate candidate, withdrew from the race. Aides said he quit so as not to split the vote against Mr. Ahmadinejad.

Mr. Moussavi has said that he favors freedoms of speech and the press and would try to change the law that bans private television stations.

But he has also said he would not back down from the country's nuclear program, which began during his tenure as prime minister. Instead, he said, he would try to build international confidence that Iran's nuclear ambitions were peaceful.

"Weaponization and nuclear technology are two separate issues, and we should not let them get mixed up," he said.

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."

After his election, Iran broke the United Nation's nuclear agency seals on its nuclear facility and resumed sensitive enrichment activities - a process that can be used for making nuclear bomb or nuclear fuel. Iran contends that its program is peaceful and that it merely wants to produce fuel for its nuclear power plants. But because of secretive past activities, the United States and some European countries accuse Iran of having a clandestine weapons program. The country has been the target of three sets of United Nations Security Council sanctions over its program.

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.

Before the voting, supporters of Mr. Moussavi were hopeful, given the large and energetic crowds that had been turning out at his rallies. But then on June 13, the day after the voting, Mr. Ahmadinejad was declared the winner, with 63 percent of the vote to 35 percent for Mr. Moussavi.

On June 15, in an unusual radio address broadcast every 15 minutes, Ayatollah Khamenei was quoted as telling Mr. Moussavi to pursue his objections to the election result calmly and legally. The broadcast said that at a meeting on June 14, Mr. Khamenei told Mr. Moussavi, "Naturally, in this election, complaints should be followed through legal channels" adding that Mr. Khamenei told Mr. Moussavi to "follow the issue calmly."

On June 15, the ayatollah called for the vote to be examined in a turnabout from the government's earlier position that the vote had been free and fair. Mr. Khamenei had instructed the powerful Guardian Council to examine opposition complaints of widespread electoral irregularities. The council, in its ruling the following day, said the law prevented it from voiding the last vote and holding a new one.

The council later announced that it was prepared to order only a partial recount, according to state television and news reports. Mr. Moussavi and other opponents of Mr. Admadinejad rejected the proposal.

By June 17, Iran had expanded a crackdown on journalists and for the first time directly accused the United States of interference in the disputed presidential election. President Obama said a day earlier that it would be counterproductive for the United States "to be seen as meddling." But he also said he was "deeply troubled by the violence" and that democratic values needed to be observed.

Mr. Moussavi, in a message on a Web site associated with him, called on his supporters to rally again on June 18, and to go to their local mosques to mourn protesters killed in the demonstrations. His call directly challenged Ayatollah Khamenei, who had urged him to work through the country's electoral system in contesting what was declared a landslide victory for Mr. Admadinejad.

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