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Welcome to The Adversarial. Every other week, we’ll provide you with expert analysis on America’s greatest challengers: China, Russia, Iran, North Korea, and jihadists. Read more below.***IranFollowing the death of President Ebrahim Raisi in a helicopter crash last month, Iran is gearing up to elect a new president on June 28. Although Iranian policy is mostly developed and driven by Iran’s unelected institutions, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and the Office of the Supreme Leader chief among them, the presidency is nonetheless the outward face of the government in Tehran. The president also controls an important bully-pulpit and, as past presidents have shown, they can use that position to attempt to shape policy. Even if the president is unlikely to have much influence on important policies, the election remains a matter of concern to the regime and something that can be reveling of the splits and factions within it.The Islamic Republic’s peculiar form of democracy, in which an unelected institution known as the Guardian Council vets candidates along ideological and political lines, has already made the short election season interesting, with several regime insiders, including former speaker of parliament, Ali Larijani, banned from running. Six candidates were cleared by the Guardian Council to stand in the election, including four ideological hardliners of various stripes, a center-right conservative, and a token reformist. Ostensibly, it’ll be up to Iranian voters to make the final decision, but as with all politics in Tehran, the process is rarely straightforward, and meddling behind the scenes is entirely possible. Most likely, the dwindling percentage of the electorate who support Iran’s theocratic system, and care enough to parse the minute differences between the candidates, will elect one of the hardliners.Mohammad Baqer Qalibaf, a former commander in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and erstwhile mayor of Tehran, is the most