TEHRAN — Iranian lawmakers have offered their takes on the election of Joe Biden as the next president of the United States and the defeat of the incumbent president Donald Trump, demonstrating a broad range of opinions within Iran’s political spectrum with regard to Tehran-Washington interactions.

According to an article published by ISNA, MP Mojtaba Yousefi said history has shown that there’s no difference between Democrats and Republicans, and both camps pursue the same policy.

“Therefore, we should never trust the Americans,” Yousefi added.

Yaghoub Rezazadeh, a member of the presiding board of the Majlis National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, said if the next U.S. administration returns to the Iran nuclear deal, it must compensate for the Trump administration’s unilateral withdrawal from the deal.

In May 2018, U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from the nuclear pact, officially called the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and put enormous economic pressure on Iran through a renewed policy of anti-Iran sanctions.

Vahid Jalalzadeh, another member of the committee, expressed similar remarks, saying the U.S. should compensate all the damage caused by its sanctions.

MP Fada Hosseini said Biden is likely to follow Barack Obama’s policies toward Iran, but the U.S. should know that Iran’s circumstances are very different compared to the Obama era, in the sense that its defense program is more advanced and it has suffered from the illegal sanctions.

According to Asghar Salimi, Trump was an unpredictable person in the international arena who tarnished the image of America in the world and isolated his country.

“We’ve proven in the past couple of years that we will not back down from our stances and the Iranian nation never backs down from its interests and stances,” MP Salimi pointed out.

Salimi, too, urged the next U.S. administration to compensate for the damage inflicted upon Iran.

Kamal Hosseinpour offered a different perspective. He said most of Iran’s economic problems are not due to U.S. sanctions but rooted in pervasive mismanagement by the government.

“By relying on domestic capacities, many problems will be resolved and people’s livelihood can be improved through thoughtful planning,” he added.

Legislator Rahmatollah Firouzi said if the U.S. changes its bullying behavior against the Iranian nation, Iran can change its policies as well.

“It makes no difference to us who has become the president of the U.S., rather, what’s important is the behavior of the American rulers,” he remarked.

Similarly, Mostafa Mirsalim, who ran an unsuccessful campaign for president in 2017, said Iran’s problems are not linked with Trump or Biden, but are “rooted in the officials’ belief, capability, determination and truthfulness, as well as people’s demands and supervision [of officials].”

Salman Zaker said one of the reasons Trump lost the election was the Iranian people’s resistance in the face of the U.S. president’s bullying and greed.

A number of Iranian lawmakers also took to Twitter to condemn Trump for the assassination of Lieutenant General Qassem Soleimani, using the hashtag “Tough Revenge” against the cowardly killing.

On January 3, Trump ordered drone strikes that martyred General Soleimani, chief of the IRGC Quds Force, and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the deputy commander of Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Units (PMU).

In the early hours of January 8, the IRGC attacked Ain al-Assad airbase in western Iraq, where U.S. forces were stationed, as part of its promised “tough revenge” for the U.S. terror attack.

“I’m not happy over Biden’s victory, but I count the days until Trump is gone, and furthermore, for revenge against the murderers and sponsors of that cold night[’s murder] at Baghdad airport,” Ebrahim Rezaee, a member of the Parliament’s National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, wrote in a tweet.

Mohammad-Hassan Asafari and Ali-Asghar Anabestani also said what caused Trump’s downfall was the assassination of Soleimani, who was recognized as Iran’s top anti-terror commander.

According to MP Mostafa Taheri, Trump’s defeat was reminiscent of a remark by Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Khamenei who said, “This man (Trump) will turn to dust and his body will become food for snakes and ants, and the Islamic Republic will still be standing.”

MH/PA