Dubai, United Arab Emirates — In the final moments of Iran’s final televised presidential debate, one of the leading candidates to replace the late hardline president Ebrahim Raisi invoked the name of the one person who has perhaps done more than anyone else to change the trajectory of the Islamic Republic’s relationship with the rest of the world in recent years.
The next president could be “forced to sell out Iran to Trump or cause dangerous tension in the country” if economic problems are not resolved, warned Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, speaker of Iran’s parliament and candidate in Friday’s election.
President Donald Trump’s decision in 2018 Unilaterally withdrawing the United States from the Iran nuclear deal led to the reimposition of crushing sanctions and largely excluded Tehran from the global economy. This worsened the political climate within Iran, already beset by Massive protests over economic problems and women’s rights.. An escalating series of attacks on land and sea followed, while Tehran also began enriching uranium to near weapons-grade levels..
The October 7 Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent Israeli war against militants in the Gaza Strip only added jet fuel to a fire that now threatens to burn almost every corner of the entire Middle East. Iran’s support for a number of militias, including Hamas, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi rebels, and its unprecedented direct attack on Israel during the war, have made it a direct belligerent in the conflict.
What happens in both the war and Iran’s future may depend directly on the United States, denounced by Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as the “Great Satan” in the 1979 Islamic Revolution and still cursed at major events such as a speech given this week. week by 85- The supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, one year old.
Despite the vitriol, the United States has come out time and again on the campaign trail. Khamenei warned this week against supporting candidates who “think that all ways to progress go through the United States.” a thinly veiled criticism of the only reformist In the race is Masoud Pezeshkian, who has fully embraced a return to the 2015 nuclear deal.
Among the six presidential contenders, Trump has repeatedly emerged as an issue. One of them, the intransigent Amir Hossein Qazizadeh Hashemi, current vice president, maintained that if Trump wins the US presidential election “we can negotiate with Trump and impose our demands on him.”
That was not a view shared by Shiite cleric Mostafa Pourmohammadi, who warned that Iran should now participate in talks with the United States ahead of a possible second Trump presidency. However, his campaign also printed a side-by-side poster showing the cleric and Trump in profile, declaring: “I’m the one who can take on Trump!”
Hardline candidate Saeed Jalili also mocked his competitors as “afraid” of Trump and vowed to fight him.
For his part, Trump has mentioned Iran during his campaign in recent days. Speaking to the “All In” podcast, Trump repeated that he wanted to “make a fair deal with Iran,” while attempting to claim that Iran’s theocratic government, which has long called for Israel’s destruction, would somehow have gotten there. to a diplomatic recognition agreement with Israel. as the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain did during his presidency.
“A kid could have made a deal with them, and Biden did nothing,” Trump said.
Curiously, President Joe Biden’s name has not been mentioned during the Iranian election debates. Before Raisi’s death in a helicopter crash in May, the United States under the Biden administration held several rounds of indirect talks with Iranian officials.
While widely critical of Iran, particularly in the wake of Mahsa Amini’s death in 2022 and the women’s rights protests that followed, the Biden administration has opened the door for Iran to access some frozen assets abroad. That includes an agreement that saw a prisoner exchange between the countries in Septemberless than a month before the war between Israel and Hamas began.
Then there are Iran’s oil sales. Although technically sanctioned, Iran recently reported selling 2.5 million barrels per day, with most of that likely going to China, possibly at a discount. Former Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who secured the nuclear deal under relatively moderate President Hassan Rouhani and now supports reformist candidate Pezeshkian, directly attributed those sales to the Biden administration’s policies.
“That oil sales have increased was not the doing of our friends, but when Biden came to power, they had a policy to loosen sanctions,” Zarif said, indirectly referring to hardliners. “Let Trump come and find out.” what our friends will do.”
While broader talks in Vienna with world powers to restart the nuclear deal collapsed, Biden may be trying to replicate a strategy from when he was vice president under Barack Obama: working quietly and indirectly with the Iranians toward a deal that can then be brought to fruition. table. .
But much of any U.S. policy the Biden administration planned for the Middle East, including a possible Saudi security deal that could see Riyadh diplomatically recognize Israel – has been disrupted by the war between Israel and Hamas.
Meanwhile, the real wild card for Iran will come on November 5, when the United States holds its presidential election. Biden’s reelection would likely mark a continuation of the carrot stick approach applied thus far during his term. If Trump is re-elected, he could herald further discussions about a deal while also carrying risks. Trump in 2020 launched a drone attack that killed Revolutionary Guard General Qassem Soleimani while still insisting that he wanted an agreement with Tehran.
A war between Israel and Lebanon (or Houthis could attack US warship with missiles in the middle of their campaign – could also dramatically alter calculations in both Tehran and Washington.
For now, however, Iran and the United States remain intertwined in tension, just as they have for decades.
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Jon GambrellGulf and Iran news director for The Associated Press, he has reported from each of the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, Iran and elsewhere around the world since joining the AP in 2006.
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