Here is an excerpt from this article shown below:
“In the first election held in Iran in the aftermath of the landmark nuclear deal, the Iranian people flooded to the polls in record numbers to support the warming relations between the two countries. For anti-American hardliners in Tehran, this was a very bad day. According to the Washington Post:
“Iranian reformists appear have won all 30 seats representing the nation’s capital in parliament, a definitive rebuke to the hard-liners opposing President Hassan Rouhani’s efforts to increase economic openness and cooperate with the West.
“In the first elections held since last year’s nuclear deal, none of Iran’s three main political camps — reformists, conservatives and hard-liners — is expected to win an outright majority, but early results indicate the best reformist showing in the 290-seat parliament in more than a decade.”
"Republicans may have done everything they could to destroy the Iran nuclear deal, including dabbling in treason, but President Obama was just vindicated for sticking to his guns – and in a HUGE way."
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2016/02/28/iran-stun … eep-seats/
Election aside, the gov't structure is peculiar as it's a dual track; one track contains the parliament, the members elected in a democratic election, and the other track's members are primarily religious hardliners, who are not elected (see chart). It's in this latter track where the power is contained. This last parliamentary election the candidates were vetted, and if they were seen to be sympathetic to most things other than the government line they were not allowed to run.
For the optimistic part, of the candidates who did survive the vetting process, the majority of them elected were seen as pragmatic and centrists. They want more transparency within the government and would like to expand relations with Europe, Asia, and the Americas. That's positive. For a short read and excellent analysis on the last Iranian election your should read Juan Cole's piece here: http://www.juancole.com/2016/02/iran-election-res … y-win.html
What's been going on in Iran started well before 1979, and it's going to take years before a normalized equilibrium is found (if there ever is one!), but I'll take fits-and-starts coupled with ham-handed diplomacy any day before war and carnage.