ABSTRACT
For an Iranian living abroad, the experience of homecoming starts the moment one boards the plane. In a recent University of Maryland poll, 58% of Iranians felt that economic conditions were deteriorating. Donald Trump’s election has dashed any hope of achieving rapprochement and smoothing Iran’s path towards normality. Ministers’ public requests for hundreds of billions of dollars from foreign investors relied on the unrealistic assumption that foreign money would flood into Iran as soon as secondary sanctions were lifted. In Iran, too, the traditional political spectrum – hardliners, moderates and reformists – has been greatly disrupted. The southern regions of Iran still suffocate in a blend of pollution and sand, while the majority of Iranians care more about any potential economic push the government can provide them than about sparking fundamental change through another bloody revolution. In US–Iranian relations since the Islamic Revolution there have been cycles of hope and disappointment.
