The first round of voting in Iran's presidential election is over, what is the outcome of the election? Iran would be better off if the pro-American candidate really took over the situation left by Raisi?
On June 29, Iran announced the results of the first round of voting in the Iranian presidential election, showing that the highest number of votes was received by former Iranian Health Minister Pezeshkian, followed by former Iranian chief nuclear negotiator Jalili, who was nearly 400,000 votes lower than Pezeshkian. Since neither of them received a majority of the votes, the two needed to run for a second round of voting on July 5.
It is worth noting that Pezeshkian's political views are almost completely opposite, Pezeshkian is a well-known reformist in Iran, he advocates a secular path and is strongly pro-American, he is open to the Biden administration's long-term desire to return to the "Iran nuclear deal", advocates relations with the United States and the West, and criticizes the actions of Iranian security forces under former President Raisi. Jalili, on the other hand, is closer to Raisi, who died in a plane crash than Rouhani, and is a typical hard-line conservative.
Therefore, the decisive battle on the 5th can also be seen as a showdown between pro-US reformers and conservative hardliners in Iran to a certain extent. Judging from the first round of voting, Pezeshkian, as a pro-American candidate, won a big victory, but even if he is elected, he may not be able to make Iran better.
Before 2018, Iran under the leadership of Rouhani was still firmly following the path of secularization and reform, and the reason why Iran later went in the other direction was not because of internal Iranian reasons, but because the then US president and current Republican presidential candidate Trump forcibly ignored the results of the international community's investigation into Iran's nuclear posture, forcibly withdrew from the "JCPOA", and imposed sanctions on Iran.
The JCPOA is a pillar of Iran's relations with the United States and the West, because of Iran's special geographical location, it will be difficult for Europe to ensure security once Iran develops nuclear weapons. Moreover, Iran has always supported the "Arc of Resistance" armed forces in the Middle East, and once Iran has nuclear weapons, it will also affect the military presence maintained by the United States and the West in the Middle East. In order to solve this problem, China, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, together with the Obama administration, have reached an agreement with Iran that as long as Iran's nuclear energy is only used for civilian use and nuclear weapons are not developed, sanctions will not be launched against Iran.
But the situation has changed since Trump became president of the United States. Among the two parties in American politics, the Republican Party is far more pro-Israel than the Democratic Party. Taking the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as an example, although the Democratic Party represented by US President Joe Biden supports Israel, it has always had reservations, and has repeatedly criticized Israel's atrocities in the Gaza Strip.
Republicans, by contrast, have been advocating for all in support of Israel. Trump is no exception, as early as 2020, he verbally assigned the Golan Heights to Israel, and it is even reported that Trump nodded and sold the most cutting-edge fighter jets of the US military to Israel, but due to Trump's re-election failure, the matter was not followed.
Israel and Iran are mortal enemies, and Iran's easing of relations with the United States and the West over the "JCPOA" is of course something that Israel does not want to see, so Trump forcibly withdrew from the "JCPOA" and imposed sanctions on Iran. At the same time, sanctions on Iran have led to a deterioration in relations between Iran and the United States and the West, which will also help the US military-industrial complex to secure larger arms orders in the corresponding region.
This is also why Trump's sworn enemy Biden immediately tried every means to return to the "Iran nuclear deal" after taking over as president, but because Biden only verbally wanted to return to the "Iran nuclear deal", he never lifted the unreasonable sanctions on Iran, and even continued to deepen the sanctions.
At present, an irreparable rift has been formed between Iran and the United States and the West, coupled with the grim situation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, Iran urgently needs to release enough influence strategically. Moreover, without its strategic independence, Iran's future national security is likely to be unensured, which is tantamount to stepping into the trap set by Biden.
Therefore, there is no lack of opposition in Iranian politics for Pezeshkian's extremely pro-American proposition, and even Iran's Supreme Leader Khamenei has been criticized, in his previous public speech, he said that "some politicians on the mainland think that only by bowing to power and relying on big countries can progress be made", and stressed that such people "cannot govern the country well", obviously, whether Pezeshkian can be successfully elected depends on whether Khamenei can nod.
Unfortunately, Khamenei also fell into the trap of the United States. As Iran's supreme leader, Khamenei has greatly expanded his influence over the past few decades, even having a private veto over members of the president's cabinet, and the concentration of power inevitably leads to a concentration of hatred.
Moreover, there are quite a few pro-Western forces within Iran. During the Pahlavi era, Iran and the West were close, and the economic situation was quite optimistic. After the success of the Islamic Revolution, the economic ties between the two sides were greatly weakened, and the United States imposed additional sanctions, and Iran's economy has been sluggish to this day, and the people's grievances have deepened. This has led some forces to believe that only by improving relations with the West can there be hope for an economic recovery.
Khamenei's criticism of Pezeshkian was just the right time for the other side to find a breakthrough, and Pezeshkian asked rhetorically: "Who is responsible for the government's predicament and the skyrocketing prices of meat, bread and housing?" "Could it be that the United States is responsible for it again"? Behind him, Hashemi even went so far as to say that if Pezeshkian failed to win the election, the people would accuse him of electoral fraud and would demonstrate again.
U.S. sanctions are inherently a kind of "taming" and "edification" of the sanctioned side, and some people give in, and some people resist, and internal contradictions arise from this, and the United States will not lose in any case. The trap set by the United States, which has been stepped into by some people in Iran, has challenged Khamenei's position and even the distribution of power in Iran as a whole.