What If Iran Has Cut A Secret, Pre-Election Deal With Trump — Like Reagan In 1980?

-Analysis-

I am peddling neither conspiracy theories or science fiction to simply state that the Islamic Republic of Iran is sending out unusual signals ahead of Tuesday’s U.S. presidential elections, which cannot be overlooked even if their interpretations appear implausible.

Recent actions by the Islamic Republic all suggest a sudden series of reversals in Iranian policies. These include the execution of an Iranian-German national, Jamshid Sharmahd; threatening to strike Israel even harder than its previous rounds to retaliate for the air attacks 10 days ago on military targets; deliberately harming ties with Europe, notably its biggest economy Germany, which is openly backing the U.S. Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.

These actions starkly contrast with the regime’s attempts in recent months to cut a more conciliatory profile, notably with the election of the sitting president, Masoud Pezeshkian, and to convey interest in talking with the West.

Why this sudden change? Has the Iranian regime abandoned hopes of reaching an agreement with the United States? Has Russia’s President Vladimir Putin — who may be hoping the Republican Donald Trump, if elected, will help extricate him from the Ukraine crisis — made promises to the regime of Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to somehow bring it on board its own strategy?

Or could members of the Trump team have quietly reached a deal with the Tehran regime ruling out plans for regime change under a second Trump administration?

Taken together, one can’t help notice a strange merging of interests between the regime in Tehran, Putin’s Russia and Donald Trump?

We may be at one of those junctures when history repeats itself, even in the most unusual ways. I can’t help seeing startling similarities between the 2024 election and the U.S. elections of 1980, in which the Republican Ronald Reagan defeated the sitting Democratic President Jimmy Carter. In both cases, a Democrat seen as a weak president was in office: Carter then, and Joe Biden today. In both cases their opponents seemed vibrant and popular. In both cases, the Republican candidates used the Iran mischief card (and the weak response given to it) to win votes.

Weak Democrats

Both the Carter and the Biden administrations have faced some big challenges in the Middle East involving Iran’s crucial role.

In 1979, the seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran and the hostage taking of U.S. diplomats became a nightmare for Jimmy Carter. Republicans led by Ronald Reagan were able to use Carter’s weakness in solving this crisis and use it to their advantage, though in time public opinion was irked if not angered to find out there had been a secret agreement between Reagan’s people and the regime of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini to slow down the release of the hostages until after the elections.

Is Iran acting deliberately to favor the Republicans on November 5?

Today, the Republicans are accusing Biden and his aspiring successor Harris of being weak with Iran and incapable of appeasing the Middle East. But there is a question now, especially among Iranians including numerous Iranian-Americans voting for Trump precisely over Biden’s approach toward Iran: is there a deal, already done or afoot, between the Trump team and the Tehran regime? Is Iran acting deliberately to favor the Republicans on November 5?

This becomes more plausible considering Trump’s previous declarations that regime change is not on his administration’s agenda. Some observers are thus speculating that Iran’s recent actions sought to foment crises, but of an artificial kind, meant to incite opinion in Trump’s favor.

Russia’s hidden hand?

Russia’s President Vladimir Putin might also have a role here, for his desire to get out of the costly bog of war in Ukraine. As Trump has said he would end that war if elected, might Putin have made promises to Tehran concerning its prospects under a second Trump administration?

Rumors around supplying Iran with better anti-air missile systems to replace those recently destroyed by Israel, or helping Tehran’s furtive nuclear activities could all be part of this tripartite maneuvering to help ease Trump into office, even if nothing is clear in this speculative scenario.

What about the Iranians?

Numerous Iranians, from those living in Iran to opponents, exiles and dual-nationals living and voting abroad, are openly or secretly pinning hopes on Trump’s election as a possible last, or best, chance of strangling Iran’s regime!

The U.S. elections may change the global chessboard in unexpected ways.

The Biden administration’s perseverance in seeking dialogue with, or even appeasing that regime will have a good many Iranian-Americans into the Trump voting camp. But will these hopes, and this trust, turn to bitterness and humiliation if a putative secret pact were revealed? History has shown if nothing else, that politics leave little room for absolute trust or naiveté.

Nothing should be discarded beforehand, and any one of the recent or coming developments could prove decisive to a nation’s fate. Today, as in 1980, the U.S. elections may change the global chessboard in unexpected ways.