Iran’s supreme leader mocked America’s presidential election Tuesday during a televised address, quoting President Donald Trump’s own baseless claims about voter fraud to criticize the vote as Tehran marked the 1979 U.S. Embassy hostage crisis.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei reiterated a long-standing Iranian position that it didn’t matter whether Trump or Joe Biden wins the vote, but the stakes couldn’t be higher for the Islamic Republic.
Another four years could see Trump’s maximum-pressure campaigns further expand because it crushes the Iranian economy and stops Tehran from openly selling its petroleum abroad. Biden meanwhile has said he would consider re-entering Tehran’s 2015 nuclear affect world powers, providing possible relief to the beleaguered Iranian rial .
“If you inspect their own situation, it’s interesting to watch . The incumbent president, who is meant to carry the elections, says this is often the most-rigged U.S. election throughout history,” Khamenei said, not acknowledging that individual U.S. states run the vote. “Who says this? The sitting president who is arranging the elections himself. His opponent says Trump intends to widely cheat. this is often American democracy.”
Khamenei added that the results of the vote “is none of our business, meaning it won’t influence our policy within the least . Our policy is obvious and well-calculated and other people coming and going will haven’t any impact thereon .”
Khamenei, 81, as supreme leader has final say on all matters of state in Iran. He approved the efforts at reaching the nuclear deal, which saw Iran suits limit its enrichment of uranium in exchange for the lifting of economic sanctions.
But Trump withdrew from the deal in 2018, complaining it didn’t address Iran’s missile program nor its regional policies. Iran later withdrew from all the deal’s limits, though Tehran still allows U.N. inspectors access to nuclear sites.
Satellite photos show it’s now starting new construction work on its Natanz nuclear site, which was targeted during a reported sabotage attack in July.
Khamenei spoke because the coronavirus pandemic forced authorities to cancel a planned commemoration of the Nov. 4, 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. That started a 444-day hostage crisis that transfixed America and still affects relations between Washington and Iran today
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