Saeed Jalili: The 'String of Beads' for Hezbollahis or the Shell of the 'Hard Core' of the Government?

Saeed Jalili, at 59 years old, has once again run for the presidency for the third time, and now with less than 38% of the votes, he has advanced to the second round alongside Massoud Pezeshkian, who received 42% of the votes. In recent years, Jalili has been a popular figure among the 'Steadfast Front', a faction of conservatives often referred to as 'radical Hezbollahis'. From the battlefield to Imam Sadiq University, Jalili quickly went to the front lines while still in high school to participate in the Iran-Iraq War. In December 1986, at the age of 21, he was injured during Operation Karbala 5 and lost his right leg. Despite numerous interviews and speeches, he has rarely discussed his life journey from Mashhad to his presidential candidacy. Jalili, who holds a PhD in political science, wrote his thesis on 'The Diplomacy of the Prophet of Islam' and has published a book with the same title. He ran for the sixth and seventh parliamentary elections in 1999 and 2003 but lost both times. His practical entry into politics can be attributed to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, where he was promoted from a clerk in the Foreign Ministry to the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council. After rising tensions between Ali Larijani and Ahmadinejad in 2007, the then-president decided to replace Larijani with Jalili as the new secretary of the Supreme National Security Council. During that time, the responsibility for Iran's nuclear negotiations was not with the Foreign Ministry but with the Secretariat of the Supreme National Security Council. As a result, Jalili suddenly took on such a significant role without any notable diplomatic experience. November 2, 2007, is considered a turning point in Jalili's life when Larijani took him to Rome to introduce him to Javier Solana, the EU's foreign policy chief, as the new head of Iran's nuclear negotiations. By that time, the UN Security Council had issued three resolutions against Iran under Ahmadinejad's administration, and Jalili pursued those negotiations with his specific approaches. Jalili and Catherine Ashton (the then EU foreign policy chief) sat down for negotiations in Istanbul in February 2011. After Jalili's appointment to the Supreme National Security Council, discussions between Iran and the West regarding the Islamic Republic's nuclear program continued, but with ongoing fruitless talks, the United States eventually joined those negotiations, deciding to add a seasoned diplomat named William Burns to the discussions. Burns, who is now the head of the CIA, recounts his first encounter with Saeed Jalili in his book, stating, 'Jalili delivered a 45-minute speech on the history and culture of Iran, emphasizing Iran's constructive role in the region. He also mentioned that he teaches part-time at the University of Tehran. It was then that I felt I was not envious of his students at all.' Burns further noted that after the negotiation, he wrote a brief note to Condoleezza Rice, the then US Secretary of State, stating, 'The five-and-a-half-hour negotiation with the Iranians clearly reminded me that we probably haven't missed anything in the years we haven't participated in the talks.' This hardliner politician was responsible for Iran's nuclear negotiations from 2007 to 2013. During those years, numerous negotiations took place in Geneva, Rome, Vienna, Baghdad, Istanbul, Almaty, Moscow, and other locations between the Iranian delegation led by Saeed Jalili and Western negotiators, but ultimately none of them yielded results except that the Iranian delegation could determine the venue for the next round of negotiations. In June 2013, during his presidential campaign, Jalili stated in a speech, 'One of the questions is why negotiations always take place in Geneva, Vienna, and New York? Why did we hold talks in Baghdad, Istanbul, and Almaty? Why should the ruling system determine where negotiations take place? The logic of dialogue requires that the venue be agreed upon by both parties. They said because we previously had Geneva talks, we should continue there, but I replied that when an official from our country comes for a multilateral international dialogue and is denied fuel for his plane, why should we accept to go there based on what logic? Therefore, it was decided to go to Istanbul. Thus, we should also utilize these side capacities in negotiations.' In the six years that Jalili was responsible for Iran's nuclear negotiations, the UN Security Council issued three resolutions against Iran, the last of which, Resolution 1929, fell under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, a chapter that allows the Security Council to take 'military and non-military actions to restore international peace and security.' After six years in the Supreme National Security Council, Jalili decided to run for the presidency in 2013, where he was criticized by other candidates for his performance in the nuclear talks. One of the significant events of that election was the criticism from Ali Akbar Velayati, the foreign minister during Khamenei's and Hashemi Rafsanjani's administrations, directed at Jalili regarding the nuclear negotiations: 'Look, Mr. Jalili, diplomacy is not a philosophy class where you go there and say our logic was strong, and they were condemned. What the people see is that you have been in charge of the nuclear issue for several years and have not made a single step forward, and the sanctions are increasing every day, putting pressure on the people.' Jalili, however, insisted that the 'logic' of the Islamic Republic in the negotiations was superior, and that is why Western countries had no response to offer Iran. Jalili did not succeed in that election, ultimately finishing third with about four million votes. After the results were announced, Ahmad Alamolhoda, the Imam of Friday prayers in Mashhad, quoted Ali Khamenei regarding Saeed Jalili, stating that the Supreme Leader described Jalili's four million votes as significant and told him, 'This four million indicates the existence of a core in this society.' At that time, Jalili's supporters also circulated other statements attributed to Khamenei, which, although not confirmed or denied by any source, were widely shared, suggesting that Jalili should strive to be the 'string of beads' for those four million people so that 'this population grows and expands.' After that election, Jalili became a serious critic of Rouhani's government, the nuclear negotiations, and later the JCPOA agreement. He repeatedly described the nuclear agreement as a wrong action and called it a pact in favor of the United States. Jalili did not run in the 2017 election but was a candidate again in 2021, where he criticized Rouhani's government in the electoral debates and spoke about his plans for governing the country. However, the 'string of beads' withdrew in favor of Ebrahim Raisi when it became almost clear to everyone that Raisi was going to be the president. After the death of Ebrahim Raisi, Jalili once again ran for the early presidential election. His statements in the campaign did not differ from what he had previously stated. He, who is popular among some of the more radical forces within the Islamic Republic, relied on this support to run and, despite the efforts of various conservative factions, refused to step aside. Meanwhile, various factions within the government that preferred Ghalibaf over him made numerous efforts for Jalili to withdraw in favor of Ghalibaf, but he, who had even refused to accept a position in Ebrahim Raisi's government, remained in the race until the end despite extensive negotiations and even heated debates, both hidden and open, between their supporters. This is the fifth time this hardline political figure has run in an election in the Islamic Republic and his third experience in the presidential elections. In his previous two presidential elections and two parliamentary elections, Jalili had no success, with his best performance being four million votes and finishing third in the 2013 presidential election. Now, however, this hardliner is heading to the second round of the presidential election alongside Massoud Pezeshkian, a candidate from the opposing political spectrum, and the 'string of beads of Hezbollahis' is just one step away from the Pasteur building with the expansion of the 'core.'