Biden’s Election and Our Leaders’ Responsibility

With the announcement of Democratic candidate Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 U.S. election, the Donald Trump administration will become one of the few one-term presidencies in the history of the United States of America. Biden was chosen as the next president in an election that saw record voter turnout, and even many Iranians followed this election closely, a fact that shows the importance the election held for Iranians and its influence on their lives. As much as Iranian officials and media outlets try to insist that the election was unimportant for the people of Iran, Iranians’ unprecedented level of attention toward the election shows that reality contradicts this propaganda. Iranians’ preoccupation with the U.S. election is particularly interesting when contrasted with the recent Iranian parliamentary election, which many viewed as unimportant and which hit record lows in turnout since the founding of the Islamic Republic. But that is a conversation for another day!

In terms of Biden’s policy toward Iran, there are three different scenarios that could play out. First, there is the optimistic scenario, in which Trump’s departure and Biden’s arrival will prove the adage “angels arrive as demons depart.” In this scenario, the Biden administration will mean the end of sanction pressure on Iran. Next, there is the pessimistic scenario, in which Biden and Trump are no different from one another. Biden will continue along the path Trump started, with the important difference that this time the rest of the international community will go along with the U.S.’s campaign against the Islamic Republic. The last scenario is the most realistic one, in which Barack Obama’s vice president, now president himself, will behave similarly to his former boss by returning to the Iran nuclear deal and relying on the deal to solve the remaining issues between the U.S. and Iran. But how this scenario plays out depends entirely on how Iran’s leaders intend to interact with the Biden administration.

Since the end of the Iran nuclear deal, or Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the Iranian government has made a point of showing off its missile program, obstructing foreign investment and spurning negotiations. If Iranian officials continue on this path, not only will they squander the potential gains of the U.S.’s return to the deal, they will give the new American administration enough of an excuse to once again create an anti-Iranian atmosphere on the international level. Alternatively, they can learn from this post-JCPOA period that a deal like the JCPOA can be harder to keep than create, and further that they should not expect a change in the U.S.’s foreign policy alone to bring us back to the time before Trump left the nuclear deal and implemented his maximum pressure campaign. Various diplomatic tactics are necessary to maintain a deal like this, and the most important among them is negotiations.

Some believe that Biden’s return to the nuclear deal will benefit Iran so much that Iranians will choose an open foreign policy approach in the Iranian presidential election of 2021. But the election of hardliners, as occurred in this year’s parliamentary election, would not only eliminate any positive effects the 2020 U.S. election could have on Iranians. It could also cause a repeat of the bitter experience of 2011 to 2013, those years in which the Obama administration formed an unprecedented international consensus against Iran, forcing even Iran’s “friends” to apply sanctions.

The supreme leader has the direct responsibility both to determine Iran’s plan for after the U.S.’s possible return to the nuclear deal and to allow the election of candidates who plan to negotiate. From the time of the Ahmedinejad government’s negotiations with the U.S. up until now, Ayatollah Khamenei has essentially banned negotiating topics other than the nuclear program. Based on this ban, even the Rouhani government has largely put aside any public plans for reaching an agreement like the JCPOA. On the topic of the 2021 election, strict disqualification of candidates by the powerful Guardian Council could result in a repeat of the 2020 parliamentary election. The Guardian Council’s decision is determined by six Islamic jurists, and ultimately its larger policymaking is determined by the supreme leader himself. For this reason the supreme leader has the final say on the Islamic Republic’s approach toward the U.S.

The reality is that faced with this political system, two possibilities emerge:

Option One: They take advantage of the opportunity presented by Trump’s demise and Biden’s rise to kick off a multistep diplomatic process with the goal of maintaining and strengthening the gains of the JCPOA and finding a solution to bring about an end to 40 years of reciprocal hostility between the U.S. and Iran. Choosing this path could result in a move toward greater development and ultimately the revival, fortification and expansion of the Iranian middle class. This middle class could then accelerate Iran’s path to democracy.

Option Two: They repeat the last 40 years of foreign policy mistakes and in the end lose this valuable opportunity by seeing no difference between Trump and Biden. The end point of this path is clear: squandering the benefits that the U.S.’s return to the nuclear deal would grant Iran, creating an international atmosphere aligned against Iran and increasing the security concerns resulting from Iran’s political isolation and economic difficulties.

In summary, just as the law states it is the supreme leader’s responsibility to determine the Islamic Republic’s approach toward the U.S.’s political changes, it will also be his responsibility to accept the consequences of this choice.