WorldcrunchSiavash Pendar is a journalist who writes for the Persian language London-based daily Kayhan-London.
Fearing Europe’s shift to the right and a second Trump term, Tehran has dusted off its reformist credentials — with president-elect Masoud Pezeshkian and veteran diplomat Mohammed Javad Zarif — to show the West it is willing to talk. But this ploy will not work again.
A confounding alliance between leftists, wokism and Islamic fanatics is the perfect smokescreen for an insidious enemy targeting the West’s liberal values. It’s happened before.
Tehran seems to be paving the way for a moderate to become the country’s next president. But the regime’s goal is not to make life better for Iranians, but to leave him with the daunting task of handling a second Trump administration.