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Two Main Contenders Sign up for Iran's Presidential Election

FILE - In this Feb. 17, 2020, file photo, former Iranian parliament speaker Ali Larijani speaks to journalists at the Iranian Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar, File)
FILE - In this Feb. 17, 2020, file photo, former Iranian parliament speaker Ali Larijani speaks to journalists at the Iranian Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar, File)
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Two Main Contenders Sign up for Iran's Presidential Election

FILE - In this Feb. 17, 2020, file photo, former Iranian parliament speaker Ali Larijani speaks to journalists at the Iranian Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar, File)
FILE - In this Feb. 17, 2020, file photo, former Iranian parliament speaker Ali Larijani speaks to journalists at the Iranian Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon. (AP Photo/Hassan Ammar, File)

Two of the main contenders to become Iran's president, hardline judiciary chief Ebrahim Raisi and former parliament speaker Ali Larijani, registered on Saturday to run in next month's election.

The June 18 election to succeed President Hassan Rouhani is seen as a test of the legitimacy of the country's clerical rulers who are hoping for a high turnout. Rouhani is barred by term limits from running again.

But voter interest may be hit by rising discontent over an economy that has been crippled by US sanctions reimposed after Washington exited a nuclear deal between Iran and major powers three years ago.

Raisi is a 60-year-old mid-ranking cleric in Iran’s establishment. Appointed by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei as head of the judiciary in March 2019, he has emerged as one of the country's most powerful figures and a contender to succeed Khamenei.

Larijani, a former nuclear negotiator and an adviser to Khamenei, is hoping to secure backing from both moderates and hardliners and bridge the gap between them.

"I have come as an independent to the stage to make changes in the executive management of the country and to fight poverty, corruption, humiliation and discrimination," Raisi was quoted as saying in a statement by local media before registering.

“I have come to form a strong people’s government for a strong Iran” with the help of “the brave youth,” Raisi said, apparently alluding to recent comments by Khamenei who said he expected a “capable and energetic government” to come to power.

The judiciary chief lost to Rouhani in the 2017 presidential election.

Reformists and rights activists say they are alarmed by Raisi's background as a hardline judge, especially during the 1980s when he was one of four judges who imposed death penalties on thousands of political prisoners.

Raisi said his government “will not lose one moment to lift the oppressive sanctions”.

First Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri, a moderate ally of Rouhani, also registered to run.

Registration of candidates ended on Saturday, after which entrants will be screened for their qualifications by the 12-member Guardian Council vetting body, which has in the past disqualified many moderates and reformers. Six of the members of the hardline body are named by Khamenei.

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Global Interest in Israel's Air-Launched Ballistic Missiles

This handout picture released by the Israeli army on October 26, 2024, shows an Israeli fighter jet departing a hangar at an undisclosed location in Israel. (Photo by AFP)
This handout picture released by the Israeli army on October 26, 2024, shows an Israeli fighter jet departing a hangar at an undisclosed location in Israel. (Photo by AFP)
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Global Interest in Israel's Air-Launched Ballistic Missiles

This handout picture released by the Israeli army on October 26, 2024, shows an Israeli fighter jet departing a hangar at an undisclosed location in Israel. (Photo by AFP)
This handout picture released by the Israeli army on October 26, 2024, shows an Israeli fighter jet departing a hangar at an undisclosed location in Israel. (Photo by AFP)

Israel's effective use of air-launched ballistic missiles in its airstrikes against Iran is expected to pique interest elsewhere in acquiring the weapons, which most major powers have avoided in favor of cruise missiles and glide bombs.
The Israeli Army said its Oct. 26 raid knocked out Iranian missile factories and air defenses in three waves of strikes.
Researchers said that based on satellite imagery, targets included buildings once used in Iran's nuclear program, according to Reuters.
Tehran defends such targets with “a huge variety” of anti-aircraft systems, said Justin Bronk, an airpower and technology expert at London's Royal United Services Institute.
Cruise missiles are easier targets for dense, integrated air defenses than ballistic missiles are.
But ballistic missiles are often fired from known launch points, and most cannot change course in flight.
Experts say high-speed, highly accurate air-launched ballistic missiles such as the Israel Aerospace Industries Rampage get around problems facing ground-based ballistic missiles and air-launched cruise missiles - weapons that use small wings to fly great distances and maintain altitude.
“The main advantage of an ALBM over an ALCM is speed to penetrate defenses,” said Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Centre for Nonproliferation Studies at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California.
“The downside - accuracy - looks to have been largely solved,” he said.
Ground-launched ballistic missiles - which Iran used to attack Israel twice this year, and which both Ukraine and Russia have used since Russia's invasion in 2022 - are common in the arsenals of many countries. So, too, are cruise missiles.
Because ALBMs are carried by aircraft, their launch points are flexible, helping strike planners.
“The advantage is that being air-launched, they can come from any direction, complicating the task of defending against them,” said Uzi Rubin, a senior researcher at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, one of the architects of Israel's missile defenses.
The weapons are not invulnerable to air defenses. In Ukraine, Lockheed Martin Patriot PAC-3 missiles have repeatedly intercepted Russia's Khinzhals.
Many countries, including the United States and Britain, experimented with ALBMs during the Cold War. Only Israel, Russia and China are known to field the weapons now.
The US tested a hypersonic ALBM, the Lockheed Martin AGM-183, but it received no funding for the 2025 fiscal year.
Because it has a large arsenal of cruise missiles and other types of long-range strike weapons, Washington has otherwise shown little interest in ALBMs.
A US Air Force official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said ALBMs are not used in Air Force operations.
Raytheon's SM-6, an air-defense missile that has been repurposed for air-to-air and surface-to-surface missions, also has been tested as an air-launched anti-ship weapon, said a senior US defense technical analyst, who declined to be identified because the matter is sensitive.
In tests the missile was able to strike a small target on land representing the center of mass of a destroyer, the analyst said. Publicly, the SM-6 is not meant for air-to-ground strikes.
Because ALBMs are essentially a combination of guidance, warheads and rocket motors, many countries that have precision weapons already have the capability to pursue them, a defense industry executive said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
“This is a clever way of taking a common set of technologies and components and turning it into a very interesting new weapon that gives them far more capability, and therefore options, at a reasonable price,” the executive said.