TEHRAN (AFP) — After three decades of outright hostility between Tehran and Washington, Iranians believe US presidential candidate Barack Obama has a softer approach that might aid a thaw between the arch foes.
But whether the Democratic nominee or his Republican rival John McCain wins the race for the White House in November, a strategic policy shift from Washington is seen as highly unlikely.
"They have different personalities. Obama's stance is more balanced than McCain's and we can see this in Obama's team," said Kazem Jalali, a prominent member of parliament's foreign policy commission.
"But it will not have any effect in the strategic policies towards Iran because US strategy will not change with the change of president," Jalali told AFP.
McCain, he said, would follow the policies of the administration of fellow Republican George W. Bush "which sees the US as the world's class prefect."
Washington severed ties with Iran in 1980 in the wake of the Islamic revolution after Islamist students stormed the US embassy in Tehran and held 52 diplomats hostage for 444 days.
Since then, the hostility has only deepened, with the late revolutionary leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini referring to the United States as the "Great Satan" while Bush famously denounced Iran as part of an "axis of evil".
The escalation of Iran's nuclear standoff with the West against a backdrop of defiant and inflammatory rhetoric from Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has even raised the spectre of an American military strike against Tehran.
The Americans accuse Iran of meddling in Iraq and sponsoring "terrorism" by backing militant groups such as the Palestinian Hamas and Lebanon's Hezbollah, while Ahmadinejad has triggered international outrage for calling for Israel to be wiped of the map.
Washington, for the moment, says it prefers the diplomatic route in dealing with Iran's nuclear drive, which the West fears is a cover for ambitions to build atomic weapons -- something Tehran vehemently denies.
The two sides have held a series of meetings on the security situation in Iraq and in July, the US administration for the first time sent a senior diplomat to attend talks between Iran and six major powers on the nuclear row.
And the Islamic republic has expressed a willingness for the United States to open an interests section in Tehran.
The question now is how the new man in the Oval Office will handle the clerical regime in Iran, which remains a key political and economic player in the Middle East.
Last week, McCain warned that a nuclear-armed Iran could unleash a "second Holocaust" and said it was an "existential threat" to Israel -- America's staunch ally.
Obama said Washington must engage in "tough, direct diplomacy" with Iran, but that as president he would have the right "to meet with anybody at a time and place of my choosing if I think it's going to keep America safe."
"Obama's views towards Iran are more moderate. He is an African-American therefore he tries not to mix prejudice in international relations," university student Fatemeh Yusefi told AFP.
"In general many Iranians prefer Obama whose softer language would help diplomatic ties as oppose to the existing language of hostility. But no one is that immature to think that principle strategies will change," reformist analyst Hamid Reza Jalaipour told AFP.
He said an Obama victory would bring about a normalisation of ties, such as opening a US consular office in Tehran, rather than real rapprochement.
"Certainly the Democrats who want to build their policies on the rubble of the mistaken policies of the Republicans could modify their stance towards Iran's hot dossiers like nuclear, terrorism, the Middle East peace process and the Lebanese file," said Mohammed Saleh Sedghian, an independent analyst.
But former MP Mohammad Khoshchehreh said the government in Tehran might prefer to deal with the devil-they-know in the Republicans.
"It seems our executive power may indirectly prefer to continue with the previous situation, where they know who they are dealing with and are familiar with their tactics and the aggression-aggression stance."
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