TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iranians, like many around the globe, are divided on what Donald Trump’s subsequent presidency will convey: Some foresee an all-out battle between Tehran and Washington, notably as different conflicts rage within the area. Others maintain out hope that America’s forty seventh president may have interaction in sudden diplomacy as he did with North Korea.
However practically all consider one thing will change within the U.S.-Iran relationship.
“Trump will use tougher levers against Iran,” warned Ahmad Zeidabadi, a political analyst. “Iranian officials will keep rejecting him and that could make him escalate his pressure.”
And whereas Supreme Chief Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has closing say on all issues of state, has repeatedly expressed his personal disgust with Trump, Iran’s new reformist president has saved the door open to talks with Trump to hunt reduction from worldwide sanctions to buoy a cratering economic system. The Iranian rial, in a free fall for years, hit its lowest worth towards the greenback on Wednesday earlier than barely recovering.
The U.S. and Iran have had an adversarial relationship since Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution and the takeover of the U.S. Embassy and 444-day hostage disaster that adopted.
Trump’s first time period in workplace was marked by a very troubled interval, when he pursued a coverage of “maximum pressure” towards Tehran. He unilaterally withdrew America from Iran’s nuclear take care of world powers, resulting in the sanctions hobbling the economic system, and ordered the killing of the nation’s high basic.
On the streets of Tehran, opinions diverse extra. Some feared a return to the low factors of Trump’s first presidency. Others expressed pleasure.
“I’m very happy that Trump has won because he is really a powerful man,” stated Fatemeh Kaveh, 40. “I see him as a role model in terms of personality, and I always watch his stories (on social media), and I believe in him. I’m very happy he won.”
However the one opinion that issues above all in Iran’s theocracy is that of Khamenei, who has been the nation’s paramount ruler for six American presidencies. He has made his views on Trump clear.
“I do not consider Trump as a person worth exchanging any message with and I have no answer for him, nor will I respond to him in the future,” Khamenei informed the late Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in 2019. These feedback got here a 12 months after Trump withdrew the U.S. from the nuclear accord, which supplied Iran reduction from worldwide sanctions in return for restrictions meant to forestall it from constructing an atomic bomb.
Then got here Trump’s resolution to assassinate Revolutionary Guard Gen. Qassem Soleimani, a distinguished determine inside Iran, in a 2020 drone strike in Baghdad.
Khamenei’s private web site nonetheless hosts a video that imagines Trump being killed in an Iranian drone strike as he performs golf with former U.S. Secretary of State and CIA chief Mike Pompeo. Each males have obtained further safety over Iranian threats to their lives — and the nation has been accused of hacking Trump marketing campaign associates in hopes of injuring his prospects. Iranians have additionally not forgotten Soleimani’s killing.
“It is a good time for Iran to retaliate — the murderer of our hero has come back,” stated Tehran resident Reza Solatani, 39. “He should eventually pay for his crime.”
The query now’s how that hard-line method will fare amid the financial disaster and different challenges.
A string of mass protests have escalated in the previous few years, most lately with the 2022 demise of Mahsa Amini and girls rejecting the state-mandated headband, or hijab.
Iran stays locked in the Mideast wars roiling the area, and its leaders have threatened a retaliatory strike after Israel’s Oct. 26 assault. It allies are battered, together with the militant teams of its self-described “Axis of Resistance,” like Hamas, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi rebels. Help for these teams whereas Iranians wrestle economically has been a protest cry.
Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian, who will mark his first 100 days in workplace subsequent week, campaigned on a promise of outreach to the West to elevate sanctions over Iran’s nuclear program — which now enriches uranium to close weapons-grade ranges.
On Thursday, Pezeshkian appeared to stay open to talks with Washington — even within the wake of Trump’s victory — saying that “it doesn’t matter who has won the U.S elections.”
That leaves open the likelihood for negotiations. Trump in his first time period famously courted North Korean chief Kim Jong Un. Some Iranians have imagined the president-elect doing the identical in Tehran.
“Because Trump is a showman he might announce that he wants to talk to Pezeshkian in person,” stated Zeidabadi, the analyst. “Unfortunately, the problem is that (the government) can’t accept that. Even if some people in the government are interested in doing that, the majority of hard-liners won’t let that happen and this can make Trump more angry too.”
Nonetheless, some really feel Iran already is at its breaking level.
“I think Iran has no choice but to make peace with Trump, considering the situation of the dollar (exchange rate) and the livelihoods of people and the high prices,” stated Sina Khaledian, a 32-year-old nurse. “There is lack of medicine and health care. They have to do this. I think the country’s capacity to endure has been exhausted.”