“The discussions during the [Iranian] election campaign mainly focused on two key issues – the first one referred to its nuclear program, with the second issue related to its ballistic missile program. And in the post-election period, Iran’s president-elect faced serious domestic and foreign challenges driven from the above-mentioned factors. The foreign challenges stemmed from the new U.S. sanctions on Iran, with the domestic issues related to the tensions in the relations between the president and the IRGC (Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps),” Armen Israelyan, a Yerevan-based expert on Iranian studies, noted in a Facebook post.
“The recent meeting between Hassan Rouhani and the IRGC leaders seems to have relaxed the existing tension in their relations. Meantime, Iran’s conservatives still continue to exert pressure reading the nuclear deal, demanding the government to be deprived of its powers on the program.
Hassan Rouhani will be officially inaugurated as Iran’s president in a few days, and it is likely that the president will introduce the government staff during that ceremony.
At the government session on July 27, Rouhani promised an adequate retaliation to the new U.S. sanctions. In this context it is not ruled out that the Supreme National Security Council, or another structure under the direct command of the supreme leader will begin dealing with the nuclear program instead of the government,” he concluded.