Iran has elected their new President Ebrahim Raisi, a top Judge of the country.
Last night his supporters celebrated his victory. Head of the Judiciary and the Protog of the Supreme Leader, Raeesi said “I thank Almighty God for the people’s trust”.
However, it’s not the people’s trust that got him to the throne rather a stage-managed process that virtually promised his win.
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Raisi, who’s already under a Trump era sanction for alleged Human rights abuses, is allied with revolutionary gods.
Enemies of the US and backers of Hasbullah, designated as a terrorist organization by Washington. Also, in command of Iranian Navy boats that harass you as warships in the Persian Gulf.
But there’s one area where probable co-operation may take place, a revived Nuclear deal with the US and its allies.
Raisi has said that he’ll respect it as it’ll benefit politically if Iran’s battled economy gets a boost from the lifting of American sanctions.
Elizabeth Palmer, Senior Foreign Correspondent from Tehran thinks that ” it comes down to money, if the Iranian government signs the nuclear deal and curb enriching Uranium and its enrichment program, in general, will allow more international surveillance, the US will lift sanctions on Iran and it’ll be able to sell its oil.
At the moment, it is really crippled that it has no income and so I think that President Raeesi is motivated by the idea that he could get some revenue flowing and that, of course, can be good for his own popularity.”
When asked about the Iranian government opening up to other reforms, Elizabeth said “If you mean reforms in the sense of liberal reform, freedom of speech or freedom online or even women being able to wear the scarf if they want to, I think it’s very unlikely.
President Raisi is close to the Supreme Leader, who sees himself as a “Guardian of Revolution” and the values of Revolution which are very religious and very conservative and so is unlikely he’s going to turn away from them and steer Iran towards more cooperation with the west, highly unlikely.
In fact, I think the opposite it’s likely that Iran will develop a more confrontational style for the US.“
For Elizabeth, when compared to the last Presidential elections back in 2017 many things have changed now.
In comparison, she said, “The big pivot came when President Trump held the United States out of the nuclear deal and put on massive sanctions and that really crippled Iran.”
Israel wants the US and its other allies to unite against this threat of Iran reviving their nuclear deal.
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