Trump's victory intensifies challenges for Iranian president

Iranian politicians and activists predict tougher days for President Masoud Pezeshkian after Trump’s victory in the US presidential elections and prospects of negotiations to lift sanctions waning.

In a tweet after Trump’s declaration of victory, Abdolreza Davari, a conservative politician who supports Pezeshkian, described him as “the unluckiest president in Iranian history”.

Davari pointed out that from his very first days in office, Pezeshkian has had to deal with various crises including the assassination of the Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, Iran's missile attack on Israel, Israel’s retaliation a few weeks later, “and now after 75 days he has become afflicted by Trump,” he wrote.

Pezeshkian promised disillusioned Iranian voters to do all in his power to lift the draconian sanctions that Donald Trump imposed on Iran in 2018 and continued to increase under Democrat Joe Biden.

Unlike his hardliner rivals who insisted sanctions are a “blessing” that would help Iran to develop and maximize its own capacities, Pezeshkian has on many occasions said the sanctions that have isolated the country from international markets are the cause of the current economic crisis.

Shortly after Trump victory, the Iranian government spokeswoman Fatemeh Mohajerani told reporters in Tehran that Iran was not worried about his re-election because “more than five decades of sanctions have toughened Iran” and insisted that who won in the US elections made no difference to Tehran and its macro-policies.

Pointing out that it was Trump who withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal and imposed the toughest sanctions on Iran, social media activist Sahand Iran-Mehr in a tweet predicted much harder times than during Trump’s first term ahead of Iran with Gaza War as a new component.

Some ultra-hardliners on social media are describing Trump’s win as “a funeral” for Pezeshkian and reformists who, they say, hoped Kamala Harris would win and make the path to direct talks with the US less bumpy for Pezeshkian’s government.

They are reminding Pezeshkian, who has previously suggested openness to direct talks with the United States, that he should avoid even considering such talks under Trump’s presidency, given Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei’s strong disdain for him.

“Mr. Pezeshkian, …, Get the thought of negotiating with Trump out of your head,” Kaveh, an ultra-hardliner social media activist tweeted referring to Khamenei’s statement in his meeting with the visiting Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in June 2019.

Iran's Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei told Abe, who was said to be delivering a message from the US President, that he did not consider Trump a person “worthy” of exchanging messages with although Trump had expressed his willingness to negotiate with the Islamic Republic.

After the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force Commander Qasem Soleimani’s targeted killing in Baghdad on Trump’s orders in January 2020, Khamenei also said that “Trump and likes of him belong to the trash bin of history”. In another speech later that year, he scornfully described Trump’s failure to win as being “kicked out of the White House”.

Some reformists on social media, on the other hand, allege that supporters of Pezeshkian’s ultra-hardliner rival, Saeed Jalili, are pleased with Trump’s victory because it diminishes the chances of direct talks with the US, which Jalili strongly opposes.

“We aren’t pleased with Trump’s presidency. We look happy because you [reformists] are upset with Harris’s failure to win,” another ultra-hardliner social media activist tweeted.

Trump’s win has thrilled some ordinary Iranians who believe his tougher stance against the Islamic Republic will help bring it down although Trump has on various occasions suggested that regime change in Iran is not on his agenda.

In an interview with Iranian-American podcaster Patrick Bet-David on October 17, Trump said he would like to see Iran be very successful. “The only thing is, they can't have a nuclear weapon,” he said. Asked if he would seek regime change, Trump said the US could not “get totally involved in that” when it had problems running the country.

“Congratulations to the opposition, who prayed to God and wished Mr. Trump to win,” the prominent reformist pundit Sadegh Zibakalam tweeted Wednesday.

“Let's wait and see what the racist, misogynist, anti-black, anti-immigrant and Latino, anti-Palestinian and anti-Muslim Trump will do to advance democracy and improve human rights in Iran as the opposition believes,” he added.