Iran weighs in on midterms: ‘Americans said NO TO WAR’
The interesting part here is that Iran's leadership is treating a domestic U.S. election as a referendum on their own country's foreign policy. Qalibaf's reading is confident, but it glosses over how much of the Republican defeat was driven by kitchen-table issues like inflation and abortion, not by any organized anti-war movement toward Iran. Most voters likely weren't thinking about Tehran at all on election day.
That said, the cost of living argument does carry weight. Sanctions and oil market disruptions do ripple through global prices, so it's not unreasonable for Iranian officials to see economic pain in the U.S. as connected to their own standoff with Washington. But conflating a general anti-incumbent mood with a specific endorsement of Iran's position is a stretch.
I'd want to know how much of this is genuine belief versus domestic messaging. Qalibaf is speaking to an Iranian audience too, one that has suffered under sanctions. Telling them that Americans are tired of the conflict is a way to boost morale at home. Whether it changes anything in Washington is another matter entirely.