CAIRO — Many Iranians are bracing for a return to all-out war as Israeli and U.S. leaders sharpen their threats ahead of elections in both countries in the coming days, and as Iran’s leaders remain defiant despite mounting pressure.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who faces a close vote Tuesday, says Iran’s leadership must be eliminated. President Trump, who is historically unpopular as his party heads into midterm elections a week later, vows to “finish the job” in Iran eight months after the war began, as a third aircraft carrier and thousands of troops make their way to the region. Some fear attacks just after the U.S. midterms on Nov. 3.
The Associated Press spoke with Tehran residents who described growing anxiety. Some were preparing to leave the capital. Iran’s president has accused the U.S. of disrupting negotiations that have shown little sign of progress for months.
Fereshteh Hajipour, 35, the mother of a toddler, said she was stockpiling over-the-counter medicines and food for fear of a “possible war and bigger bombs.”
Iran threatens new targets
Iran’s leadership believes that Trump probably will order new strikes regardless of the results in the midterm elections, and “they are planning for the scenarios so they can take remedial measures,” said Sasan Karimi, a foreign policy professor at the University of Tehran and former government official.
“They’ve accepted that he will attack us again, before or after the elections,” Karimi said.
Iran has again threatened U.S. military bases and allies in the Middle East, and has warned that it could attack new targets, including undersea data cables that snake through the Strait of Hormuz. This month has seen the highest number of reported attacks on commercial ships transiting the strait since the war’s opening weeks in March.
Meanwhile, a U.S. naval blockade of Iranian ports has restricted oil exports on which Iran’s government depends, increasing the economic pain as each side tries to outlast the other. Trucks have piled up at borders as Iran’s trade shifts to overland.
The blockade has caused medicine shortages in Iran, though there is no sign of shortages of food or other essential goods. Iranians have seen livelihoods and purchasing power crumble as their currency’s value has reached record lows, losing much of its value in the last year. Inflation has soared.
Iranian officials have accused the U.S. of aiming to foment unrest.
“Economic warfare is the main axis of the war against us,” Iran’s parliamentary chief and lead negotiator in past rounds of talks with the U.S., Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf, told a gathering of officials this month.
President Masoud Pezeshkian said Iran faces “a dangerous turning point” as the government seeks to manage growing economic problems and find consensus within the Islamic Republic’s fractious power structure.
Memories are fresh of the nationwide protests sparked by economic pressures that led to a deadly crackdown weeks before the war.
Soaring cost of groceries
Even for middle-class Iranians, affording basic groceries has become difficult. Prices for staples have risen steeply since the war began. Rice is over 60% more expensive, and beef more than 150%.
Mohammad Mohammadi, 36, said a trip to the supermarket can burn through half a monthly mid-range salary of 400 million rials — roughly $215.
Despite the high prices, Mohammad Abedi, 39, said the rising attacks on the Strait of Hormuz spurred him to buy extra supplies for his family, including dried dates, cooking oil and rice.
“I’m worried that the situation could get worse,” he said.
Political moderates are calling for a deal with the U.S. to salvage the economy.
“With the increase in the exchange rate, the conditions for governing the country have become difficult for the executive branch,” politician Mohsen Hashemi Rafsanjani warned in an editorial this month in the reformist daily Sazandegi.
But economic pressure won’t change Iran’s negotiating positions, said Karimi, the former official who served under Pezeshkian. “This is a tested thing. No economic pressure will convince people here to make a deal.”
Karimi added: “Tehran is calculating based on resistance, because they are convinced that will change the calculations of the other side.”
There has been little said publicly about negotiations via mediators after Trump rejected an Iranian proposal last month to end the war and fully open the Strait of Hormuz within a week if Washington met certain conditions, including lifting the blockade.
Some Tehran residents prepare to leave
Tehran is dotted with bombed-out buildings from U.S. and Israeli strikes during the height of the war in March and April. Thousands of homes were damaged or destroyed.
Hashem Vajdani, 45, a gym trainer, said he plans to leave the city as anxiety grows.
“I have already packed my belongings to go to a safer town in the north of the country,” he said. “Today I bought more canned food, crackers and extra blankets.”
There are concerns that new fighting could bring a higher toll for Iranian civilians. Thousands have been killed in the war. Trump has repeated threats to take out power plants and other infrastructure.
Anger at the U.S. president has found expression in a billboard set up days ago at a major Tehran square. Passersby have watched a Trump impersonator languishing behind bars as video behind him shows a deadly strike on a wedding party in southern Iran that independent analystshave blamed on the United States.
Staring up at the cage, Farzaneh Arabzadeh, 30, said she hoped the scene would happen in reality. Trump said he launched the war to help Iranians, she said, but he “put our people in a worse situation.”
The elections in Israel and the U.S. are expected to reflect voters’ anger over the war and other issues. Trump’s political support could be weakened, while Netanyahu is in a tight race at a time of anger over Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack, and a series of inconclusive wars in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran.
Israel’s elections are especially important, Tehran-based analyst Rahman Ghahremanpoursaid. If Netanyahu stays, there is a higher chance of all-out war resuming because of his willingness to take major risks, he added.
Tehran residents said neither election is likely to improve relations.
“It makes no difference. Their hostility toward us remains unchanged,” said Rasool Ghanbari, 50.
Radjy writes for the Associated Press.
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