The country is treating the outcome of the U.S. election as an opportunity—and a potential threat.
foreignpolicy.com
As U.S. President Donald Trump urged his followers to disrupt the counting of ballots, he provoked laughter from the leaders of countries to which the United States had long preached democracy. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei,
tweeted, “What a spectacle! One says this is the most fraudulent election in US history. Who says that? The president who is currently in office. His rival says Trump intends to rig the election! This is how #USElections & US democracy are.”
Trump walked out of the U.S.-Iran nuclear deal in May 2018 and reimposed debilitating sanctions on the country. This “maximum pressure” policy punished the Iranian regime, but, as is often the case, it mostly hurt the Iranian people. The resulting absence of popular goodwill explains why Iranian Twitter so vociferously exploded with mockery at Trump’s post-election press conferences disputing the results; one Iranian said their own regime could never match the U.S. president’s success at undermining democracy on live television. Iranians were also quick to rejoice when Joe Biden was declared president-elect, expressing hope that he would restore normal economic relations.
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani indicated his government was ready for talks, although in a well-calculated manner that guarded Iranian pride. He said he hoped that the last three years of pressuring Iran without much avail taught the United States a lesson that will make “the next U.S. administration follow the law and return to all its commitments” under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, signed when Biden was vice president. Seyed Mohammad Marandi, an Iranian American academic and political analyst, said in an interview that Iran expects the United States to fully comply with its obligations under the deal and “compensate for damages done due to U.S. violations of the deal.” Only then would Iran return to the table, Marandi added.
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I've been laughing at Trump for nearly 4 years, during those periods when I wasn't cursing. Good for the Iranians.
BTW, Trump doesn't like people who laugh at him.
