🔶 US midterm election; eight factors that could intensify or ease tensions with Iran

🔻 A report by Niloufar Gholami

On the eve of the United States’ midterm elections, the U.S.- and Israel-led war against Iran has entered its ninth month, and diplomatic efforts to put an end to it have intensified again. However, disagreements over Iran’s nuclear program, U.S. sanctions, and security of passage through the Strait of Hormuz continue to prevent an agreement. The initiative by mediators has, so far, produced no results.

The main knot is the ordering of the parties’ commitments. Washington wants the issue of Iran’s nuclear program to be put on the table from the beginning of the negotiations; Tehran, for its part, considers lifting restrictions on oil exports and the blockade of its ports as a priority.

Meanwhile, the fate of the war is not only tied to decisions made in these two capitals. The eight factors that follow—according to the account of Omid Emaratiān, senior analyst on Iran at the “Down” institute, a Washington think tank focused on revising U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East; Leila Morvati, a political analyst based in Finland; and Babak Razayi Daryakanari, an associate professor of international relations at Leiden University in the Netherlands—can tip the scales in one direction or the other.

📌 For full access to the report, visit the website of Deutsche Welle Farsi.