I suggest you look into sudo. It will allow a regular user to run a command as root (without having to know the root passwd even).
then in launcher you need only use a launcher command kinda like '
sudo /blah/cmd -blah '
cheers
~ # man sudo
SUDO(8) MAINTENANCE COMMANDS SUDO(8)
NAME
sudo - execute a command as another user
SYNOPSIS
sudo -V | -h | -l | -L | -v | -k | -K | -s | [ -H ] [-P ] [-S ] [ -b ]
| [ -p prompt ] [ -c class|- ] [ -a auth_type ] [ -u username|#uid ]
command
DESCRIPTION
sudo allows a permitted user to execute a command as the superuser or
another user, as specified in the sudoers file. The real and effective
uid and gid are set to match those of the target user as specified in
the passwd file (the group vector is also initialized when the target
user is not root). By default, sudo requires that users authenticate
themselves with a password (NOTE: by default this is the user's pass-
word, not the root password). Once a user has been authenticated, a
timestamp is updated and the user may then use sudo without a password
for a short period of time (5 minutes unless overridden in sudoers).