Presidential elections in Iran defy easy categorization. The winner assumes Iran's highest elective office, but no president to date has been able to defy the wishes of the unelected ayatollahs who rule the country. And while the nomination process is very tightly controlled, the eventual winner often comes as a surprise to many Iranians and most outsiders.

Mr. Rafsanjani lost because he was too closely associated with the recent economic failures and political inertia. Mr. Ahmadinejad, in contrast, offered a populist economic platform that implicitly challenged the cronyism and corruption of more than a quarter-century of clerical rule. We wish him luck. But it is hard to see how he can deliver on those promises over the objections of the ruling establishment, whose powers greatly exceed his own.

Unless the long-stalled talks with Britain, France and Germany make some real progress in the very near future, these European powers should acknowledge that diplomacy has failed and refer the Iranian nuclear issue to the United Nations Security Council. That will not necessarily produce a solution either, particularly if Beijing uses its veto to shelter Iran, an important oil supplier. But there is no point prolonging negotiations if Iran intends only to use them to buy time to further advance its nuclear weapons ambitions.