Iran Officials: Voters Rejected War    11/04 06:50

   Iranian officials on Wednesday celebrated U.S. voters' rebuke of the 
Republican Party and President Donald Trump in the midterm elections, as the 
region waited to see how the results could affect the Iran war.

   (AP) -- Iranian officials on Wednesday celebrated U.S. voters' rebuke of the 
Republican Party and President Donald Trump in the midterm elections, as the 
region waited to see how the results could affect the Iran war.

   Concerns about the war's effects, particularly frustration over rising 
prices for fuel and other goods in the U.S., helped Democrats win control of 
both chambers of Congress in Tuesday's vote.

   "Conscience or the cost of living, Americans said NO TO WAR, and we endorse 
this message," Iran's chief negotiator and parliament speaker, Mohammad Bagher 
Qalibaf, wrote on X. "If the US govt betrays their public will to serve 
international paymasters and blackmailers, it will learn our NO comes with a 
Nightmare."

   The broader region has been on edge over the prospect of the U.S. resuming 
full-scale military operations against Iran for the first time in almost two 
months. Talks aimed at preventing renewed fighting continue, while other U.S. 
allies in the region are urging Washington against resuming full-scale 
operations in the war, now more than eight months old, which has rattled the 
global economy and devastated Iran.

   Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has reportedly pushed for more 
strikes, while Trump has alternated between threatening major strikes and 
pushing for a deal.

   Despite ceasefire agreements and repeated diplomatic efforts, military 
confrontations have continued in southern Iran and around the Strait of Hormuz, 
raising concerns about a return to full-scale fighting.

   Iran's supreme leader said those who think partisan changes in the United 
States can change its enmity toward the Islamic Republic are "gravely mistaken."

   In a letter shared on his social media account, Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei, 
who hasn't been seen publicly since the war began with U.S. and Israeli strikes 
on Feb. 28, said: "If there are still those who harbor even a slight hope for a 
change in behavior or partisan and factional shifts within the system of 
domination, or who imagine that by giving concessions to America they can 
dissuade it from hostility toward the Iranian nation, they are gravely 
mistaken."

   Iranian targets hit ahead of the midterms 

   The midterms came after the U.S. carried out what appeared to be a limited 
strike on Iranian targets in the crucial Strait of Hormuz waterway, which 
raised questions about what might come next.

   Iranian state media reported explosions Monday on Qeshm and Hengam islands 
and near the southern port city of Bandar Abbas. Iranian authorities have not 
publicly identified the specific sites struck or disclosed the extent of the 
damage.

   The Strait of Hormuz, through which about a fifth of the world's oil supply 
passed before the war, has also witnessed repeated incidents involving 
commercial shipping. Iran has severely restricted shipping through the strait 
since the conflict began, while the United States has maintained a naval 
blockade of Iranian ports.

   Ali Nikzad, Iran's deputy parliament speaker, linked Republican election 
losses to Washington's policy toward Iran. He told lawmakers Wednesday that 
U.S. sanctions had failed to break Iran's economy or force its people to 
surrender.

   "The enemy's efforts to bring down Iran's economy have failed time and 
again," Nikzad said, adding: "These defeats are the aftershocks of defeat at 
the hands of the Iranian people."

   Iran marks anniversary of 1979 seizure of US Embassy 

   The anniversary of the 1979 takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran was 
marked in Iran on Wednesday, with thousands of people parading through the 
Iranian capital to commemorate the event.

   Demonstrators burned American and Israeli flags and chanted "Death to 
America" and "Death to Israel." Effigies of Trump and Israeli Prime Minister 
Benjamin Netanyahu were displayed alongside caricatures of the two leaders. One 
depicted Trump as a ferocious dog poised to attack, with Netanyahu holding its 
leash.

   Addressing the demonstrators, Tehran Mayor Alireza Zakani claimed the United 
States and Israel had suffered a decisive defeat, including in the U.S. 
midterms.

   "The decisive defeat of the United States and the Zionist regime in recent 
developments and elections is the result of the Iranian nation's steadfastness 
and strength," Zakani said. "Even political rivals in the United States have 
acknowledged that this failure was the result of the Iranian people's ingenuity 
and perseverance."

   On Nov. 4, 1979, Iranian students stormed the U.S. Embassy, taking American 
diplomats and other citizens hostage. Fifty-two Americans were held for 444 
days before being released on Jan. 20, 1981.

   The crisis helped cement the rupture between the two countries, which have 
had no formal diplomatic relations for decades.

   Iran's influential hard-line judiciary chief, Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejehi, 
linked the election results to the war and the anniversary of the hostage 
crisis in a post on X.

   "Trump failed both in war and in politics. We will certainly impose even 
more defeats upon him," he wrote.

   The United States and Israel launched a war against Iran on Feb. 28, killing 
the country's longtime supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and triggering a 
conflict that has disrupted global energy markets and shipping through the 
Strait of Hormuz.

   Back-channel negotiations continue 

   Back-channel negotiations have continued as Israel and some Middle Eastern 
allies lobby Trump.

   U.S. Vice President JD Vance said Monday, before news of the strikes in the 
Strait of Hormuz emerged, that he and Trump "both feel pretty good about the 
prospects for potentially coming to a negotiated settlement."

   Before the latest strikes, the Trump administration's last known attacks on 
Iran were in early September. Thousands of U.S. troops remain in waters off 
Iran to maintain a naval blockade aimed at preventing tankers carrying Iranian 
oil from reaching the global market. Another aircraft carrier and thousands of 
additional troops are on their way to the Middle East.

   Netanyahu pushed for another wave of strikes on Iran after the U.S. 
elections during a weekend call with Trump, according to two regional officials 
and a third person familiar with the matter. The two officials said diplomatic 
efforts had made progress and mediators were trying to advance a framework 
under which Iran would halt its attacks in the strait in exchange for the U.S. 
lifting its blockade.

   The two officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were 
discussing classified briefings they had received from American officials and, 
in one case, Israeli officials. The third person, who was briefed on the call, 
also spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to 
comment publicly.