Iranians wonder if Trump wins, would things be different this time?

TEHRAN, Iran — The last time Donald Trump was in office, the consequences for Iran were disastrous.

As president, Trump pulled out of a nuclear deal that had begun to reduce sanctions in exchange for Tehran limiting its nuclear capacity.

He added 1,500 sanctions, including on Iran’s oil sales and banking sectors, debilitating the Iranian economy. And he ordered the assassination of a revered Iranian military leader, Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who had been designated as a terrorist by the United States.

Regardless, as Trump runs for a second term, some Iranians say he might be a better option for them than Vice President Kamala Harris — or at least no worse.

“Since he wants to be the one to ‘Make American Great Again’ and he sees himself as a man of negotiation,” said Farhad, 34, an English tutor for college students, “maybe he will negotiate.” Like several other people interviewed for this article, Farhad asked that only his first name be used.

In more than 20 conversations with people in Tehran over the past week, the US election and its outcome loomed large for the majority, with many speculating about what the differences between Harris and Trump might mean for Iran. The conversations were held in the presence of a government interpreter.

Most saw Harris as someone who would continue the policies of the Biden administration, and Trump as someone who would make changes and might be the better of two bad choices, even though he has been an enthusiastic backer of Israel, Iran’s enemy.

They pointed to what they see as Trump’s dislike of foreign wars, noting that his administration negotiated the framework for the withdrawal from Afghanistan, his recent pledge to “end the suffering in Lebanon,” and his relative openness to Russia, an Iranian ally.

“Iranian people want Trump to win because he will stop the war in Israel and Gaza, maybe not right away, but soon,” said Farzin, 24, who sells cellphones from a shop in central Tehran across from a massive mural depicting an Israeli soldier being handed guns by men in western suits. “He will end the war in Ukraine and Russia and he does what he says,” he added.

Among the chief US criticisms of Iran in addition to its nuclear ambitions has been Tehran’s support for armed groups across the Middle East, including in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, and the Gaza Strip. The focus most recently has been on Hamas and Hezbollah, with which Israel has been waging war following the Hamas-led attacks of Oct. 7 last year.

Until this year, almost all the attacks on Israel were carried out by Iranian-backed groups rather than Iran itself, and in turn, Israel attacked those groups. That changed last spring when Iran struck Israel. Since then the two countries have been in a tit-for-tat series of attacks that have put the region on a knife edge. Iran last week said it would retaliate for Israel’s latest attack, risking another cycle of escalation.

When asked in a “60 Minutes” interview last month which foreign country was “our greatest adversary,” Harris said Iran is “the obvious one.” Trump has said that Israel should “hit the nuclear first and worry about the rest later,” referring to Tehran’s nuclear sites after it launched missiles at Israel.

The most politically conservative Iranians interviewed in Tehran largely dismissed any difference between the candidates and the parties they represent.

Ebrahim Rezaie, a conservative legislator from Bushehr and a member of the Iranian parliament’s committee on foreign policy and security said: “It is not important who is elected,” and added: “In our political calculations we do not take into consideration who is the president of the United States.”

The editor of Javan, a conservative newspaper, Mohammad Javad Akhavan, voiced a similar view.

But others interviewed said they believed that whoever came to power in Washington, their policies—whether new ones or continuations of existing ones—would leave a lasting imprint on daily life in Iran.

“The American election has more impact on Iran than our presidential election,” said Nazanin, 23, a graduate student in English, who was drinking cappuccino with a friend at a coffee shop near Tehran University, with jazz playing in the background.

“We have seen Donald Trump and we know he will change many policies that will affect us,” she said.

She said that during Trump’s last term, the sanctions and opprobrium Trump directed at Iran left young Iranians, especially feeling cut off, unable to travel to the West for study or business or even to access many websites. She held up her cellphone and said: “This is all that connects me now to the rest of the world.”

The Shargh newspaper, the main reformist newspaper in Iran, has been avidly covering the U.S. election. The newspaper’s Persian site includes a video explaining the Electoral College system and the significance of swing states, as well as stories on Trump and Harris' respective policy positions.

“If someone here says the American elections aren’t important, either he doesn’t understand the American elections or he’s lying,” said Mahdi Rahmanian, the newspaper’s editor-in-chief. “Look at the differences,” he said, noting that during the Obama administration, Iran signed the nuclear deal that would have led to a substantial lifting of sanctions against Iran. “Under Trump we exited it,” he said.

While Trump clearly cuts a large figure in the minds of the Iranians interviewed in Tehran, they are less clear on what Harris represents — apart from the continuation of the policies of the current administration.

“If Kamala Harris wins, her policy will be similar to Biden and so Russia and China will join more with Iran and form a triangle of power,” said Saman Taghavi, a business coach who works on marketing for local beauty salons and small businesses.

But, he added, reflecting a widely held view here that Democrats remain more open to Iran than Republicans, “There will be more interaction between our countries if she becomes president; with Trump there will be confrontation.”

Hassan Ahmadian, an assistant professor of Middle Eastern studies at Tehran University, said he was doubtful that Iranians who say they think Iran would be better off under Trump have taken the full measure of what a Trump presidency would likely mean.

“With Trump there are many different layers,” he said. While Iranians may be aware of one or another aspect of Trump’s personality, they are less likely to understand the important but less visible influence of the former president’s advisers, he added.

And, even if Trump was inclined to negotiate with Iran, as some Iranians hope when they hear the former president describe himself as a dealmaker, it is unlikely he would find a partner in Tehran, Ahmadian said.

Trump might want “only a photo with a leader, but there would be no guaranteed outcome,” Ahmadian said, adding that the Iranian leadership is “risk averse,” given its past experience with Trump.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.