AFP: European newspapers said Monday that new international tensions, particularly over nuclear issues, seem inevitable following the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the Iranian presidency. Rome’s La Repubblica said the triumph of what it called “black Islam” and a return to the obscurantist past puts Iran at the heart of international tensions, with the risk of military strikes by the United States or Israel if Ahmadinejad goes ahead with an alleged project to built nuclear weapons.

USA TODAY: The election of Tehran’s mayor as Iran’s president consolidates power under supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and will bolster those in the United States who argue against engagement with Iran’s theocratic regime, some Iran analysts say. The victory of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “very much strengthens the sense here that there is no use dealing with Iran,” said Shaul Bakhash, an Iran expert at George Mason University in Virginia.

Financial Times: The election of a new hardline president in Tehran is likely to complicate the Islamic Republic’s engagement with the European Union just as the UK, France and Germany prepare to make a detailed offer to Iran on curbing its controversial nuclear programme. Although Iranian officials have quickly moved to ease concerns of a change in policy on the nuclear front, European officials yesterday warned that the victory of Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad, the ultra-conservative mayor of Tehran, had made the European policy of engagement, whether on the political, economic or nuclear
front, harder to pursue.

The Guardian: How much power will the new president have?
Mr Ahmadinejad is subordinate to supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Under the Islamic republic’s system of velayat-e faqih (leadership of the supreme jurist), Mr Khamenei, with the constitutional watchdog, the guardian council, has final say in crucial fields, such as foreign policy, the armed forces, intelligence, the judiciary, and police.