Iran after the US midterm elections... between relief and gloating

The Islamic Republic's Supreme Leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, said in a written message that the Republican Party's defeats in the US midterm elections will not change the US's hostility towards Iran. He added: "If there is still someone who hopes for a change in behavior or a shift in the partisan or sectarian majority in the ruling regime in the United States, or who believes that by making concessions he can persuade America to abandon its hostility towards the Iranian nation, then he is completely mistaken."

Mohammad Sadiq Javadi Hisar, a journalist and member of the reformist Etemad Milli Party, said in an interview with DW: "Iran will not change its position now just because the Republicans have lost their majority." Muhammad Sadiq Javadi Hisar has been arrested several times because of his critical stance. “The decision on ending this conflict is being made in the United States and Iran will continue to insist on its demands,” he explains.

"Regime change in the United States"

Iranian Parliament Speaker and chief negotiator Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf described the election result as evidence that the American people reject war. “The Americans said 'no' to war. We support this message,” he wrote on the X platform. Qalibaf attributed the election result to motives related to the conscience of voters and to the high cost of living in the United States.

Mohsen Rezaei, Secretary-General of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, also believes that the election results represent a political defeat for Trump. He wrote on the X platform that the Iranian nation not only inflicted a strategic defeat on the American president on the battlefield and in the Strait of Hormuz, but also in Washington. At the same time, he stressed that the American people would now bear the costs of the war. “Whoever is hostile to Iran will pay the price for it, from the battlefield all the way to his doorstep,” Rezaei wrote.

From US President Trump's point of view, the goal of the war was regime change in Iran. “The regime has been changed, but in America,” the website of the Etlaat newspaper wrote sarcastically. The newspaper is the oldest daily still published in Iran and was founded in 1926.

Under the title “The dilemma between war and the agreement with Iran after Trump’s defeat in the elections,” the site raises the question of whether the American president will continue to rely on military force or will try to resolve the current impasse through economic pressure and diplomatic negotiations.

Historical parallels: Carter and Trump

Mehr News Agency (MNA), affiliated with the Iranian "Islamic Tablighi Organization", in its news coverage, made a historical comparison between the defeat of US President Jimmy Carter in the elections and the political situation of Donald Trump.

The report recalls the hostage crisis that occurred during Carter's presidency. In 1979, revolutionary Iranian students stormed the American embassy in Tehran and took dozens of American citizens hostage. The Carter government did not attempt to liberate the hostages through a military operation until April 1980, but the operation failed. In November 1980, Carter lost the presidential election to Ronald Reagan.

The article stated: “The failure of the military operation at that time demonstrated that American military means were not capable of resolving the crisis.”

“There is no difference between elephants and donkeys”

Tasnim News Agency, which is close to the Revolutionary Guards, confirms in its news coverage the position of the militants: “There is no difference between elephants and donkeys,” as one of its reports stated. The elephant is the symbol of the Republican Party, while the donkey is the symbol of the Democratic Party.

The agency points out that Trump's electoral defeat is at the same time a personal defeat for him as a result of the war against Iran. The agency summarizes the relationship between the two American parties with a Persian proverb that says: “The yellow dog is the fox’s brother.” What is meant by this is that both parties take similar positions in their policy towards Iran or the so-called “rogue countries.”

Shifts in the balance of power with global repercussions

"The United States is a superpower and a hegemon. Therefore, developments in this country are of importance to the entire world, from Mexico and Canada, through the European Union, to China and the Middle East," Hossein Alizadeh says in an interview with DW.

This expert in international relations and political analysis worked for 22 years in the diplomatic corps of the Islamic Republic. In September 2010, he resigned from his job in protest against the regime and has been living in exile in Finland since then.

Hossein Alizadeh believes that the possibility of a large-scale military escalation by the United States is small. The expert confirms that although the Democrats are opponents of the Islamic Republic, “unlike the Trump administration, they were betting on reaching a diplomatic settlement with Tehran.”

Under Democratic President Barack Obama, a nuclear agreement was reached in 2015 that placed Iranian nuclear activities under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency, but Donald Trump unilaterally withdrew from this agreement during his first term.

None of the Democrats or US allies supported a war against Iran. They even warned of the possible consequences. Expert Hossein Alizadeh says: “The negative effects of the war have already become clear. Iran has effectively closed the Strait of Hormuz, which is the most important oil trade route in the world. The whole world is suffering from high gasoline prices and an energy crisis. However, it is difficult to predict how the situation will develop in the coming days.”

Prepared in Arabic by: M.A.M