Iran’s big question about the US election: Will Trump or Harris seek diplomacy? | 2024 US Election News

Tehran, Iran – When the United States elects its president, the impact of its election is felt around the world, and few countries are as directly affected as Iran.

But as the United States votes on Tuesday in an election in which Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump are running neck-and-neck, according to final polls, Iran is grappling with a particularly challenging reality, analysts say: Tensions with Washington appear to remain sky-high regardless of who that ends up in the White House.

Harris, a Democrat, and Trump, a Republican, are running for president at a time when a third major Iranian attack on Israel appears almost certain and fears of a full-scale regional war persist.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has vowed a “teeth-crushing” response to Israel in retaliation for its first-ever claimed airstrikes on Tehran and several other provinces on October 26.

Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commanders suggest their next action against Israel – which is expected to involve the Iranian army also after four army soldiers were killed by Israeli bombs – will involve more advanced projectiles.

Against this background, both presidential candidates in the United States have expressed harsh views on Tehran. Harris called Iran America’s “greatest adversary” last month, while Trump called for Israel to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities.

At the same time, both have signaled that they will be willing to engage diplomatically with Iran.

Speaking to reporters in New York in September, Trump said he was open to restarting negotiations on a nuclear deal. “We have to make an agreement because the consequences are impossible. We have to make a deal,” he said.

Harris has also previously supported a return to nuclear talks, although her tone on Iran has hardened recently.

According to Tehran-based political analyst Diako Hosseini, the big question for Iran amid all this is which of the two presidential candidates might be more prepared to deal with tensions.

“Trump is giving excessive support to Israel, while Harris is very committed to the mainstream American agenda against Iran,” he told Al Jazeera.

History of tensions

The history of the two candidates will also greatly influence their potential future relations with Tehran.

A year after becoming president in 2017, Trump unilaterally withdrew from the 2015 nuclear deal between Iran and world powers, imposing the toughest US sanctions ever on Iran, which included the country’s entire economy.

He also ordered the assassination of Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s top general and its second most powerful man after the Supreme Leader. Soleimani, the commander-in-chief of the Quds Force of the IRGC, was killed along with a senior Iraqi commander by a US drone in Iraq in January 2020.

After taking office in January 2021, current US President Joe Biden and Harris continued to enforce Trump’s sanctions, including during the years when Iran was dealing with the deadliest outbreak of COVID-19 in the Middle East, which killed close to 150,000 people.

The Biden administration has also significantly added to these sanctions, blacklisting many dozens more individuals and entities with the announced goal of targeting Iranian exports, limiting its military capabilities, and punishing human rights abuses.

After an Iranian missile attack on Israel last month, Washington expanded sanctions on Iran’s oil and petrochemical sectors to negatively affect the country’s crude exports to China, which had rebounded and grown over the past few years despite the sanctions.

Trump has argued that he will stifle resistant Iranian exports through better enforcement of the sanctions.

“Pursuing diplomacy with Trump is much more difficult for Iran because of the assassination of General Soleimani, but it is not impossible,” Hosseini said.

“However, if a potential Harris administration is willing, Iran would have no major obstacles to direct bilateral negotiations. Nevertheless, Iran is well and realistically aware that regardless of who takes over the White House as president, diplomacy with Washington is now considerably much more difficult than at any other time.”

Since the U.S. pulled out of the landmark nuclear deal, all dialogue with the United States — including failed efforts to revive the comatose nuclear deal and a prisoner exchange deal last year — has been held indirectly and through intermediaries such as Qatar and Oman.

‘Tactics can change’

President Masoud Pezeshkian’s government, made up of representatives from reformist to hardline political factions in the Iranian establishment, has tried to strike a tone that shows both moderation and strength.

Pezeshkian said in a speech on Monday that Iran has been engaged in an “all-out economic war” and must stand up to its adversaries by boosting its local economy. He has also repeatedly said that he will work to have the sanctions removed and is open to talks with the West.

“It is strange that the Zionist regime and its backers continue to make claims about human rights. Violence, genocide, crimes and murder lie behind their seemingly nice facade and ties,” the president said during his latest speech.

Speaking on state television on Monday night, Iran’s top diplomat said Tehran “doesn’t place much value” on who wins the US presidential election.

“The country’s main strategies will not be affected by these things. Tactics may change and things may be accelerated or delayed, but we will never compromise on our basic principles and goals,” Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said.

Araghchi traveled to Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, on Tuesday, where he discussed “the threats posed by the Zionist regime and the regional crisis” with top officials, including army chief General Asim Munir.

The IRGC continues to conduct a large-scale military operation in the southeastern province of Sistan and Baluchistan, which borders Pakistan and Afghanistan, where there have been several recent armed attacks by a separatist group that Iran believes is backed by Israel.

The Jaish al-Adl group killed 10 members of the Iranian armed forces in the province on October 26 in an attack condemned by the UN Security Council as a “heinous and cowardly terrorist attack”.

Since the attack, the IRGC said it has killed eight members of the group and arrested 14.