Mojtaba Khamenei says U.S. policy will not shift after the midterms
The Guardian reported that Iranian officials claimed credit after Tuesday’s U.S. midterm elections, asserting that Iran had helped defeat Donald Trump. It characterized the reaction inside Iran as a “good degree of triumphalism.” On Wednesday, Iran unveiled a massive new billboard and banners over Enqelab Square in central Tehran. One displayed the English pledge “We will kill Trump” and depicted Trump behind bars with his head bowed. The Guardian assessed that the display elevated the degree of personal animus with which Trump was viewed in official Iranian circles.
Wednesday also marked the anniversary of Iran’s seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran in 1979, which ensnared Jimmy Carter. The Guardian described the anniversary as a reminder of how Iran had ruined the prospects of more than one U.S. president.
Ehsan Movaheidian, an international relations scholar, claimed: “The Islamic Republic of Iran has succeeded in regime change in America. The same will soon happen in Europe as well. Bow down before the power of Iran.” Meisam Zohurian, a conservative member of parliament, said: “The joy over the outcome of the US elections has nothing to do with the arrival of this party or the departure of that party. The issue is the aggressor was smeared in the dirt and Iran had an impact on the result.” Ali Nikzad, the first deputy speaker of the parliament, said: “These electoral defeats are the aftershocks of Trump’s defeat by the Iranian people.”
Iran’s supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei, wrote that anyone expecting a shift in U.S. policy was “seriously mistaken.” He wrote: “Those who still harbour even the slightest hope that the behaviour of the hegemonic system might change through partisan or factional shifts, or who imagine that making concessions to the United States can dissuade it from hostility towards the Iranian nation, are seriously mistaken.” Other Iranian figures predicted further electoral defeats for European figures they considered warmongers and the expulsion of U.S. bases from the entire Middle East. The Guardian wrote that, in a sense, the result meant Iran had “indeed killed Trump, or at least the second term of his presidency.”
The election result did not establish whether either side would regard the outcome as a moment to review its diplomatic strategy. Iran’s chief negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, called on Trump to accept the wisdom of the American people. On social media, he urged Trump to bow to the verdict of America: “Whether driven by conscience or the cost of living, America said no to war and we endorse this message.” Ghalibaf added: “If the US government betrays the public will in order to serve international paymasters and blackmailers it will learn our ‘no’ comes with a nightmare.”
Over the previous eight gruelling months, The Guardian said Iran’s resistance — described in the report as “bloody-mindedness” — allowed the Strait of Hormuz to become an Iranian-controlled channel through which inflation and high diesel prices were transmitted to the American system. On Wednesday, Trump accepted and lamented that the American people had decided the “short-term” pain of inflation was not a price worth paying to prevent Iran from becoming a nuclear power.
The Guardian said Gulf monarchies, and possibly Russia and China, would ask Iran to reflect on the wisdom of war. China appeared to be seeking a solution to the Strait of Hormuz blockade that was preventing badly needed Middle East oil exports from reaching Chinese industry, the outlet said. A Chinese special envoy was traveling to Oman, Iran and Saudi Arabia almost immediately. The Guardian assessed that China, which tended to approach only when it believed talks could succeed, was probably testing the feasibility of a deal in which Iran would “downblend,” or dilute, its stockpile of highly enriched uranium inside Iran under international supervision.
The Guardian wrote that some countries sympathetic to Iran’s predicament could point out that, if Tehran had expected Trump to capitulate and turn his carrier fleet around in the run-up to the elections, that expectation was mistaken. Separately, some Iranian diplomats had hoped that the prospect of defeat in the midterms and pressure from within the Republican Party would lead Trump to make concessions to Tehran.
Both sides and Qatar, the chief mediator, tried to use polling day as a lever, but neither side retreated, The Guardian reported. It described the conflict as a holding bay of “neither war nor peace” and said Trump, for once, was true to his word, refusing to let darkening opinion polls reduce his determination to continue the confrontation. The Guardian also assessed that Trump’s priority was to keep the oil price as low as possible by repeatedly suggesting a settlement might be imminent.
For the next two months before the new Congress convenes in January — a delay that reduced his budgetary options — Trump had greater latitude and little accountability, The Guardian said. The outlet assessed that the damage to the Republican Party had been done and could not be undone.
At a Wednesday rally outside the former U.S. embassy, demonstrators carried placards denouncing Trump. Photographs in The Guardian’s report showed a student walking over Israeli and U.S. flags and a woman holding a portrait of Mojtaba Khamenei with a handwritten card reading “Kill Trump.” One placard referred to the Minab school bombing, in which 120 children were killed, and a UN mission called the bombing a “war crime” by the United States.
Influencers who had advocated for the war were pressing Trump to strike again quickly. Laura Loomer wrote on X: “Time for President Trump to deal with Iran once and for all. Just do it, Nothing to lose now. Finish the job.” The Guardian said the credibility of Loomer and those like her had been severely damaged. It noted that in February she had advised Trump that regime change in Iran — “a little excursion” — could be as easy as knocking over the Maduro regime in Venezuela.
Benjamin Netanyahu was touting intelligence showing that Iran was preparing to use chemical weapons. The Guardian said the ease with which the Israeli prime minister invoked intelligence to justify another assault on Iran may have affected White House thinking.
Hillary Clinton, described by The Guardian as Trump’s old sparring partner, said she thought he would probably launch the long-delayed attack. She said: “I think he will feel trapped. He will feel angry and resentful and he will react aggressively.”
Having come so far, Trump had already paid a high political price and may use the next two months to secure a legacy by “finishing the job,” however he defines it, The Guardian said. He told Fox News this week: “Iran has very few missiles and drones left, and even less capacity to build any more.” He added: “We are dealing with total strength. We can end it any time.” The Guardian called the assertion “blithe optimism” and said such optimism had been heard before.