Iranians gathered in Tehran to burn a poster depicting US President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, special envoy Steve Witkoff and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as the city marked the anniversary of the 1979 US embassy takeover. The demonstration coincided with Republican losses in the US midterm elections, which Tehran linked to the war in Iran.
Rally marks 1979 embassy takeover
The poster was set alight on Wednesday night during a state-organised rally commemorating the student seizure of the US embassy in Tehran during the 1979 Islamic revolution. Radical students stormed the embassy and held 52 Americans hostage for 444 days, cementing the rupture between the two countries, which have had no formal diplomatic relations since.
Crowds sang and waved Iranian flags as the poster burned, and demonstrators marched through central Tehran burning US and Israeli flags while chanting “Death to America” and “Death to Israel”.
Vance and Trump Jr blame Iran war
Following the Republican defeat, Vice President Vance took to social media to list what he believed were the four reasons for a “blue tsunami” in Tuesday's midterms. According to a pollster, the top four reasons were: end the war, focus on cost of living and inflation, put America First, and change the US relationship to Israel.
Donald Trump Jr, the president's oldest son, agreed with the vice president in a lengthy social media post that blamed the losses on the Iran war.
Tehran warns of more defeats
Iran's judiciary chief, Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejehi, echoed the sentiment in a post on X, saying: “Trump failed both in war and in politics. We will certainly impose even more defeats upon him.”
Tehran has used the midterm results to declare that voters rejected the war launched by Mr Trump, but concern remains that the US could still carry out strikes. Two senior Iranian sources told Reuters that while Iranian leaders welcomed the Democrats' victory, Tehran was worried Mr Trump might seek to compensate for it with a military strike, and it remained on high alert.
