Regardless of who secures the presidency in Iran, be it reformist candidate ex-health minister Masoud Pezeshkian or conservative former nuclear negotiator Saeed Jalili, Iran is likely to continue improving relations with Asia and continue its ascension on the world stage.
“I think the declining West inevitably means a rising Iran,” Mohammed Marandi, a professor of English literature and Orientalism at the University of Tehran told Sputnik's Fault Lines. “And so we're gonna have a very different West Asia and Iran's allies continue to be on the rise. So, regardless of who wins the presidency, I think that in the coming years, Iran is going to have great opportunities.”
Last year, Iran joined BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Council (SCO), enabling more cooperation and deeper coordination between it and other member states.
“I think that Tehran right now is taking advantage of the rise of Asia. It’s improved its ties with Russia, with China, with India as well,” Marandi noted.
On Tuesday, Russia said it expects to sign a comprehensive cooperation agreement with Iran in the near future. “We expect that this agreement will be signed in the nearest future, as work on the text is already almost complete. All the necessary formulations have been found,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrey Rudenko told Sputnik.
Marandi has hope that a declining West will force them into a more reasonable policy towards Iran. “That the West is on the decline and their foothold in Asia is declining, perhaps, will in the end or ultimately at some point that the [will] become more reasonable,” he said. “Americans don’t have the sort of leverage they had before and I think as we move forward, as the United States has greater difficulty in facing global challenges, but also challenges at home.
“As we’ve seen in the debates between Biden and Trump, I think the United States will feel greater need to solve its problems with Iran, and perhaps it will behave more reasonably towards the country.”