All through Iran’s presidential marketing campaign, in debates, rallies and speeches, a singular presence has hovered: Donald J. Trump.
To listen to the six candidates inform it, the previous president’s victory within the 2024 White Home race is a foregone conclusion. The pressing query going through Iranian voters as they go to the polls on Friday, they are saying, is who’s greatest suited to cope with him.
They rarely point out President Biden, and so they by no means convey up the various polls suggesting that the American election can be extraordinarily shut. As an alternative, Mr. Trump’s identify is invoked time and again.
“Wait and you will note what is going to occur when Trump comes,” one candidate, the cleric Mostafa Pourmohammadi, stated throughout a latest televised debate. “Now we have to prepare for negotiations.” One other candidate, Alireza Zakani, Tehran’s mayor, accused his rivals at a debate of getting “Trump-phobia,” insisting that solely he may handle him.
In considered one of Mr. Pourmohammadi’s marketing campaign posters, he and Mr. Trump are eye to eye, staring one another down. “The one who can stand in entrance of Trump is me,” it reads.
Iranians have ample purpose to be cautious of one other Trump presidency. It was Mr. Trump who unilaterally pulled the USA out of Iran’s cope with world powers over its nuclear program, though U.N. nuclear inspectors had repeatedly confirmed that Iran was complying with its commitments. Mr. Biden has made efforts to revive the deal since taking workplace, to no avail.
Mr. Trump additionally imposed robust financial sanctions concentrating on Iran’s oil revenues and worldwide banking transactions, and people sanctions have remained below Mr. Biden. These measures, in addition to corruption and financial mismanagement by the management, have tanked Iran’s financial system, sending the forex plunging and spiking inflation.
Analysts say the shadow thrown by Mr. Trump exhibits how central international coverage is to the election, with all six candidates — 5 conservatives and a reformist — acknowledging that any hope for financial aid is inseparable from Tehran’s relations with the world.
“The potential return of the Trump administration has develop into a bogey in presidential debates,” stated Vali Nasr, a former Obama administration official and a professor on the Johns Hopkins College Faculty of Superior Worldwide Research in Washington.
“Laborious-liners argue their toughness will tame Trump, and average and reformist candidates consider that Trump will react to hard-liners with much more stress on Iran, hinting that they’re higher positioned to alter the dialog with the U.S.,” he stated.
In Iran’s political circles, concern a couple of Trump comeback predates this particular presidential election, which is being held to interchange President Ebrahim Raisi, who died in a helicopter crash in Might. The International Ministry created an off-the-cuff working group within the spring to start making ready for Mr. Trump’s return, two Iranian officers stated.
Iran negotiated not directly a number of instances this yr and final with the USA by Oman and Qatar for a prisoner swap and to defuse regional tensions, and it engaged in oblique negotiations for a return to the nuclear cope with each the Trump and Biden administrations.
The officers, who requested to not be named as a result of they weren’t approved to talk publicly, stated that, ought to Mr. Trump be elected, Iran would proceed oblique negotiations however wouldn’t meet with him immediately. They stated that they mentioned whether or not ready to cope with Mr. Trump would make extra sense than reaching an settlement with Mr. Biden now, solely to have a Republican, whether or not Mr. Trump or another Republican president sooner or later, tear it up.
Mohammad Baqer Ghalibaf, the conservative speaker of the Iranian Parliament, who is taken into account the front-runner within the presidential race, put it this fashion: “When we face an enemy like Trump who doesn’t behave with integrity, now we have to be calculative in our habits.” Mr. Ghalibaf, a former commander within the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, has stated that restoring the nuclear deal and sanctions aid are amongst his prime priorities. He stated if the president doesn’t make well timed selections he would “both should promote Iran to Trump or create tensions within the nation.”
Mr. Trump repeatedly stated throughout his presidency that his coverage of most stress on Iran was geared toward cornering the nation into making concessions on its nuclear program, and that he was not in search of regime change. He defended his coverage final week in a digital interview with the All In podcast.
“I’d have made a good cope with Iran; I used to be going to get together with Iran,” Mr. Trump stated within the interview. He stated his principal objective was to disclaim Iran nuclear weapons. “I had them at some extent the place you might’ve negotiated,” he added, in a declare disputed by analysts. “A toddler may’ve made a cope with them.”
In Iran’s theocratic system, the supreme chief, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has the ultimate say on all main state issues, together with negotiations with the USA and nuclear coverage. However the Iranian president does set the home agenda and has some affect on international coverage.
There’s concern amongst Iranian voters about Mr. Trump, stated a marketing campaign employees member for the reformist candidate, Dr. Masoud Pezeshkian, who requested to not be named as a result of he was not approved to talk publicly. The employees member stated by phone from Tehran that voters had contacted the Pezeshkian marketing campaign by social media asking what the candidate’s plans had been for countering Mr. Trump.
Dr. Pezeshkian has made the former international minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, the chief nuclear negotiator who helped seal the 2015 deal, the face of his international coverage. However Dr. Pezeshkian’s advisers stated that his selection for international minister can be Abbas Araghchi, who was Mr. Zarif’s deputy and a member of the staff that negotiated the nuclear pact in 2015.
Throughout a televised round-table dialogue, Mr. Zarif advised considered one of Dr. Pezeshkian’s conservative rivals that Iran had been capable of increase its oil gross sales to pre-sanctions ranges of two million barrels a day as a result of Mr. Biden had “loosened the screws,” including: “Watch for Trump to return again, and we’ll see what you’ll do.”
At a rally in Tehran on Monday, Saeed Jalili, an ultraconservative candidate who was additionally concerned within the nuclear talks, addressed Mr. Trump with a well known quote from Qassim Suleimani, the high-ranking normal whose 2020 assassination was ordered by Mr. Trump.
“Mr. Trump, you gambler, we’re those who can cope with you,” Mr. Jalili stated, rousing the gang to wild cheers and claps.
Leily Nikounazar contributed reporting.
