I tell you what is going to be a spectacle. Iranian retardness. Trump had done a favour to Iran. It had exposed the US deep state hostility to Iran.
Well brother, it has been nearly 41 years since Iranian revolutionaries stormed America's so-called embassy in Tehran (in fact a spy nest), leading to a complete interruption of bilateral diplomatic relations, which has lasted to this day. The founders of the Islamic Republic were perfectly aware of US designs against Iran, and so are their heirs, naturally. Resistance against US imperialism is even one of the foundational cornerstones of Iran's entire political system.
So Trump wasn't the one to expose American hostility to the Iranian leadership.
This would despite all the pain it inflicted on Iran push her closer to China and build up a long term, strategic, stable relationships with a emerging superpower.
It's not Iran that is standing in the way of deeper strategic ties with China, but the relative interconnectedness of the Chinese and US economies. To be more exact, the importance of US and other western markets for China's hitherto largely export-oriented model of economic development.
Entering a full, overt strategic alliance with Iran = getting sanctioned by the US regime and seeing one's companies barred from doing business in America. China can't afford this, and understandably so. But this might change in the future.
If Biden wins he is gonna play the good cop and wean Iran again on Washington. You will have Tehran again going soft and opening trade deals with India, trade deals with EU, trade deals with USA.
Apart from the purchase of passenger aircraft - a sector where China is not yet offering alternatives to western manufacturers, and where Iran had an urgent requirement given its ageing fleet, nothing of significance was done with the US. And Boeing never honored the agreement anyway.
Concerning the EU, Iran has always been willing to trade with them, regardless of who's in charge in Washington.
But the point here is that China remained Iran's major trade partner even after the 2016 nuclear agreement. It'll become apparent if you look up Iran's foreign trade data There never was a big shift towards the west in terms of business relations - let alone politically, where bilateral conflicts continued unabated.
Even so, why would China object to Iran conducting business with other nations? No country limits its economic relations to a single partner afterall. China herself has an enormous volume of bilateral trade and investment with the US, EU, Australia, Canada and so on - the list even includes Iran's arch-foe, the zionist entity, as well as every one of Iran's regional competitors. This hasn't affected nor disrupted Beijing's economic relations with Iran though.
As far as I know China never strongly objected to another country trading with India. It is itself doing some business with them.
This will again push China away from Iran.
Any removal of sanctions will in fact automatically boost economic exchange between Iran and China, at least as much if not more so than Iran's trade with the west.
That's why Beijing has been such a steady supporter of the Iran nuclear deal reached under the Obama administration.
Then down the road at another election cycle another US admin will come along play the bad cop routine again. Iran will again get a kick up their behinds and the whole thing will play again. Iran is caught in this ground hog day of good cop/bad cop routine.
It reminds me of the guy who was asked as punishment what he wanted. 100 lashings or 100 raw onions to eat. He chose the latter but after dozen of raw onions he cried for "lashings please". Of course after dozen raw onions he cried "onions please". Result he got 100 lashings and 100 onions.
This is Iran. But with retarded mullahs running it this is what you get ........
I agree with your description of the US regime as a fake "democracy", where Republican and Democrat administrations engage in a sort of alternating roleplay, but will in reality pursue the same ultimate goals.
It seems you're misreading the Iranian system however, which contrary to the American one is genuinely pluralistic - or democratic, if you prefer. Indeed, there's no stupidity on the part of Iranian decision makers: it's just that there are broadly two factions with truly differing agendas and outlooks in the Iranian political system. Revolutionaries loyal to the founding principles of the Islamic Republic on the one hand; and liberal reformists / centrists on the other. They have opposed aims but cohabitate within the same polity.
While the former, led by Iran's Supreme Leader himself, remain largely in control of the core of the system, they must nonetheless make some concessions to the latter, depending on their respective political fortunes, which in turn are determined by a set of internal and external circumstances, as well as by the stages of the game of chess these factions are mutually involved in.
When you see Iran appearing to be somewhat more flexible in her negotiations with the west, it's simply that the reformists and/or centrists are temporarily having the political upper hand in this regard. When on the contrary you see more intransigence from Iran, it's that the traditional revolutionaries are managing to contain reformists and centrists.
Iranian decision makers neither contradict their own selves nor are they naive. They are, however, of differing persuasions, and the elections as well as their internal political competition determines which current will get to shape policies and to what extent. What Seyyed Khamenei has been doing succesfully - managing all these competing currents while at the same time making sure that Iran will stay on a path of continued development and resiliance against her existential enemies, requires quite the political astuteness.
