A Potential Game Changer In Washington And Tehran (op-ed)

UANI Political Director Jason Brodsky: "President-elect Donald J. Trump's improbable electoral victory has left the international community stunned.  With foreign policy elites around the world bracing for a geopolitical earthquake when it comes to the 45th President of the United States, the Iran file may very well undergo an extreme makeover, pivoting from quasi-detente to aggression. A Trump presidency has the potential to be a game changer in relations between Iran and the United States for three principle reasons: the emboldening of Iranian hardliners as a result of his election; the initiation of a tit-for-tat retaliatory dynamic between both countries; and the thwarting of the piecemeal normalization of U.S.-Iran bilateral diplomatic contacts. From the day the nuclear deal was inked, the Supreme Leader of Iran Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has been hedging his bets — blessing the nuclear agreement, while publicly complaining that the United States could not be trusted to fulfill its end of the bargain, akin to consuming a "lethal poison." With President-elect Trump's dubbing of the accord as a "disaster" that could lead to a "nuclear holocaust" and vow that his "(n)umber-(o)ne priority" would be to "dismantle the disastrous deal with Iran," such rhetoric will likely play into the worst suspicions of conservatives in Tehran's corridors of power.  If a U.S. presidential administration was seen as abrogating an international commitment, Iran's firebrands would be given even more ammunition to direct at the pragmatic President Hassan Rouhani, who is up for reelection in the spring of 2017."