Essay on Shargh Newspaper, January 18, 2021 -
The original text was in Persian and the following translation was done by Ai.
In recent days, due to Ms. Faezeh Hashemi's comments regarding the desire for Trump to win the US presidential election and its aftermath, the question has been raised again as to how one can achieve a real classification regarding this election in Iranian society? Of course, this question, as a subject of quantitative research, required a survey on the same days of this election.
But at the same time, and regardless of the weight of the different groups supporting Trump's victory, Biden's victory, or neutrality, the main groups of supporters can be assessed in the following context:
Supporters of Donald Trump's victory in the Iranian space inside and outside the country were divided into four groups:
But the other side of this story, the groups that wanted Biden to win the election, can also be divided into two main categories:
Non-commercial economic activists: Those who hope for economic activity in the real and non-commercial sense. That is, if foreign policy, trade, and the economy become normal, they will benefit from the prosperity and psychological peace of society in both their lives and their businesses. These people include entrepreneurs, manufacturers, ordinary businessmen, technocrats, and professional bureaucrats, and they review times such as the reform era and the era of Rouhani's first leadership in their mental history. The main priority of this group is also the economy, and politics, and especially foreign policy, from their perspective is simply a tool to create stability and peace in the business market.
Moderate reformists: The other group of politicians is reformist who hope for reforming political affairs by overcoming the blockage that has arisen. This group is generally composed of political and civil activists who support the government, from three groups: moderate reformists (in the style of Mohammad Khatami), moderates who are aligned with the Rouhani government (in the style of Javad Zarif), and moderate fundamentalists (in the style of Ali Larijani). From the perspective of this layer of society, the main purpose of reforming affairs is to make governance more efficient, to reduce tensions with the world, and to prosper economically. These goals are only possible and desirable if they are achieved at low cost and in a logical and reliable way. Turning the page and disrupting the social system, especially with foreign interference, is the red line of this group, and it basically leads to their greater unity.
It should be noted that among the above groups, those who have taken “politics” as their basis (i.e., the two extremist groups on the one hand and the three moderate groups on the other) in addressing every important political issue, including the US elections, have a glimpse of next year’s presidential elections in Iran, which will not only determine the macro-management of Iran in the near future but also affect the calculations in confronting the West, the US and the world on the nuclear issue and other issues.
What affects this issue is the type, speed and manner of the new government’s stance and action on the Iranian issue, in which the topic of all subsequent discussions will be the nuclear issue and the unilateral sanctions imposed by Donald Trump.
The main question can be posed as follows: can foreign policy issues be and should they be considered related to domestic issues? And how does the international aspect of US domestic policy relate to domestic policy issues in Iran and other major countries?
Despite what politicians and diplomats say in their official positions, it can be assessed in accordance with academic language that both domestic policy affects foreign policy and international relations and vice versa. This issue and its confirmation, regardless of the necessary research aspects that may have been done before, can be viewed under the same paradigm - namely, finding a connection between US domestic policy and foreign policy of this country and international relations, which ultimately affects the domestic policy of countries like Iran.
As can be seen, the election of Trump or Biden has affected the interests of various political, social, economic and security groups in Iran, and therefore each - regardless of their origin - evaluates their gains and losses and the path forward of the country in proportion to these equations. That is why, as soon as the results of the recent elections became clear in Washington, we witnessed more severe attacks on moderate individuals and movements, who are feared to have a better chance of success in the upcoming elections. Of course, as mentioned, these attacks are not from a specific faction, but rather, in a general description, from all the extremist circles of this multifaceted and multilateral game (domestic extremism, the radical opposition that subverts, and also the extremist forces in the political scene of the countries facing each other).
In a brief conclusion, it can be theorized that “extremism strengthens extremism and moderation strengthens moderation.” This was witnessed by the strengthening of domestic extremists on the one hand and the opposition on the other hand as a result of Trump’s extremist policies.
In other words, now that the scene has changed and the moderate team is in power in Washington, efforts are being made to completely disrupt this order and any possibility that it will result in resolving the issue through genuine moderation.
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