Iran’s presidential election presents a paradox. The vote was free enough for Hassan Rohani to score a shocking win and for the favored conservative candidate to finish a dismal third. And yet it was blatantly unfair because hundreds of reformist and pragmatic candidates were blocked from running.
For policymakers in the U.S. and Europe, this presents a challenge: How should they respond to this remarkable upset victory for Rohani, who was the eventual candidate of Iranian reformists and is also a regime-approved insider?
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