What signal did the end of Iran's general election, with five hardliners running and all of them defeated by reformers? However, on what basis is the position of Iran's president-elect generally believed that he has "pro-American" tendencies? Seeing the emergence of a president in Iran who advocates détente with the West, why did the West collectively lose its voice?
According to Xinhua News Agency, on July 6, local time, the Iranian presidential election ended, and the reformist former Iranian Health Minister Pezeshkian rode the dust, winning the second round of the election, the rival and hard-line candidate Jalili more than 3 million votes, and easily became the new Iranian president. This result was unexpected by the outside world, because Iran's hardliners have firmly controlled the parliament, and there are five candidates in this election, and Pezeshkian is the only reformer. However, Pezeshkian won from start to finish, coming out on top in the first round of voting, and in the second round he defeated Jalili, who had the full support of strong factions such as the Revolutionary Guards. These circumstances seem to imply that Iranian politics is about to change?
Judging by Pezeshkian's political position, he seems to have obvious signs of being "pro-American". Pezeshkian advocated exchange rate liberalization, arguing that the government did not need to intervene in currency prices, but should leave it to the market to decide. However, even Japan, a loyal ally of the United States, was forced to intervene in the exchange rate to resist the ruthless harvest of the United States. Iran, a country that has been subject to extreme sanctions by the United States for many years, has been elected president but advocates free exchange rates, isn't this "sending to death"? Pezeshkian also believes that Iran needs to take the initiative to restore relations with the United States and other Western countries in exchange for the lifting of sanctions. But in fact, the previous interruption of US-Iran contacts was due to the tearing up of the Iran nuclear deal by then-US President Donald Trump. After Biden took office, he expressed his willingness to return to the Iran nuclear deal, and the US-Iran dialogue resumed.
However, the United States is still unwilling to lift sanctions against Iraq, so that the US-Iran talks have not made substantial progress. In August last year, Iran relented by releasing five detained Americans in exchange for $6 billion in assets unfrozen. However, as soon as the released persons returned to the United States, the Biden administration tore up the agreement and continued to freeze Iranian assets. It can be seen that it is impossible for US-Iranian relations to be truly relaxed, because the crux of the problem is not that Iran has changed its attitude, but that the United States has not changed its position of "hostility to Iran."
As can be seen from these circumstances, Pezeshkian's claims are almost "in the air", so why did he win the Iranian election? Some analysts believe that Pezeshkian was able to defeat five hardline Iranian candidates for two reasons. First, reformists still have a strong base within Iran, but there are divisions within the hardliners. During the Pahlavi dynasty, Iran was a loyal ally of the United States. Even after the overthrow of the Pahlavi dynasty in the Islamic Revolution, Iran's "pro-Western" base remained strong. Especially in recent years, after the United States withdrew from the Iran nuclear deal, it imposed tougher sanctions on Iran, which caused the latter's economy to stagnate and social disorder, and gave reformers the opportunity to increase their approval ratings. The hardliners, on the other hand, were able to put forward five candidates in one go, indicating that there is no unity of opinion within them.
Second, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Ali Khamenei stressed ahead of the election that "people who can't do anything without the support of the United States cannot run the country well." Judging from this situation, Pezeshkian's victory was a miscalculation by Khamenei. However, two days before the election, Khamenei's adviser Kharrazi publicly stated that Tehran would not refuse if the West was willing to cooperate with Iran. Kharrazi also stressed that this Iranian election will create opportunities for "reopening" between Iran and the West. It can be seen from this that the victory of the reformists in the Iranian election is likely to be the "instruction" of Khamenei.
Finally, I would like to make two points. First of all, the Iranian president is only the number two person, and the real leader of national decision-making is Khamenei. Therefore, the direction of Iran's late President Raisi's domestic and foreign affairs will not change. Like former Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, Pezeshkian is essentially a moderate reformist who will focus on economic policy, which may be an important reason why Khamenei brought him to power.
Second, although Pezeshkian showed signs of being "pro-American", after he won the Iranian election, the United States and the West reacted very coldly to this and did not make any statement. On the one hand, the West has no time to take into account the situation in Iran after experiencing the two conflicts between Russia and Ukraine and Palestine and Israel, as well as facing changes such as "the rightward turn in European politics" and "Trump is likely to return to the White House"; On the other hand, the West is not going to change its attitude because of the change of the Iranian president. It is difficult to ease relations between the United States and Iran, and the situation in the Middle East is becoming more and more intense. Let's see how the situation develops!