Vatanka Reports
News and Analysis on the Greater Middle East 
 

As Donald Trump prepares to return to the White House, the main question in Tehran is not so much what the incoming American president will do about Iran. Rather, it is about whether Tehran should negotiate with him.

Iran’s leadership is still not ready to admit what many view as the inevitable need for a foreign policy course correction. Regime talking points notably suggest that the conflict with Israel is not an ideological decision but an unavoidable struggle over the national interest.

Whatever path Harris or Trump take on Iran, the best way forward is to work in closer alignment with its partners in the Middle East and build a stronger consensus at home

That Iranians overwhelmingly believe that the country’s foreign policy is the cause for the economic problems of ordinary citizens is accepted even among many of the regime’s diehard supporters. Nor is it surprising that many Iranians, particularly among the youth, are pessimistic about the future of Iran and are looking to emigrate.

The government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is putting pressure on Tehran to choose between its ideological resistance to Israel’s right to exist and the core national interests of Iran, which are not linked to the Arab-Israeli conflict. But Israel does not expect Tehran to stand down.

Any Iranian effort to work toward a new nuclear deal without adjusting its regional policies risks meeting the same fate as the 2015 agreement. Significant relief from sanctions requires an Iranian-American process of détente that cannot be limited to the nuclear file. And herein lies Pezeshkian’s — and Khamenei’s — fundamental test.

If the foreign policy rhetoric of Iran’s new president, Masoud Pezeshkian, leaves you bewildered, you’re not alone. Pezeshkian ran as a candidate who promised fundamental change, but in his first few weeks in office, he has under-delivered, to put it mildly.

This new president’s promise to focus on regional de-escalation and cooperation — and not prioritize a quick dash for a new nuclear deal with the West — should be encouraged for one principal reason: de-escalation with the Arab world can provide a pathway for Tehran to climb down from its regional agenda and its stance toward Israel.

The supporters of the two candidates left in the race, Masoud Pezeshkian from the reformist-moderate camp and Saeed Jalili from the ultra-hardline camp, are scrambling to create voter excitement. Speaking on July 3, Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, called the runoff a litmus test for the regime and its integrity.

With just a few days left before Iranians head to the polls, it is clear that the June 28 presidential election is not exciting the country’s voters. After several televised debates, some of which have been mildly contentious, the six men in the race — the only candidates approved by the Guardian Council — have failed to energize the public.

Now that the gloves are off, Iran and Israel cannot go back to the era of “shadow war.” Still, on the Iranian side, it is the first time since the launch of the “Axis of Resistance” some 20 years ago that Tehran has to choose whether it wants to center its entire national security strategy around the conflict with Israel.

The tit-for-tat attacks between Israel and Iran over the last month were a watershed moment for the Iranian regime, representing the biggest test of the Islamic Republic’s ideological foreign policy agenda since the 1979 revolution.