Iran’s new Hard- line President inaugurated

Iran's Hard-line new President VS Joe Biden

As Iran’s hard-line new president takes office, Biden faces tough choices

Aug. 5, 2021, 1:31 AM PDT-NBC News

By Dan De Luce

The inauguration of Iran’s hard-line new president Thursday, and the country’s increasingly aggressive approach to the outside world, could spell the end of President Joe Biden’s bid for diplomacy with Tehran, experts say.

In the weeks leading up to Ebrahim Raisi’s swearing-in as president, the regime has adopted a combative stance on nuclear negotiations with the U.S. and other world powers, and it now stands accused of orchestrating a drone attack on an Israeli-managed oil tanker that left two crew members dead.

Before Raisi’s election in June, three months of diplomatic talks in Vienna had appeared close to securing a revival of the 2015 nuclear deal.

But the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who wields ultimate authority in Iran, never gave the Iranian negotiators in Vienna a green light to clinch the deal, and now it’s unclear whether any agreement will be reached.

“All the signs are pointing in the wrong direction,” said Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group, a think tank based in Brussels.

Two senior European officials told NBC News it appeared increasingly unlikely that Iran would agree to resume nuclear talks in Vienna this month.