The site near Baghdad International Airport where a U.S. drone strike ordered by then­ President Donald Trump killed Gen. Qassem Suleimani in 2020. Sergey Ponomarev - The New York Times.

By FARNAZ FASSIHI | THE NEW YORK TIMES

President Donald Trump pulled out of the 2015 nuclear pact between Iran and world powers, imposed tough economic sanctions on Iran and ordered the killing of its top general. And Iran, federal prosecutors said Friday, plotted to assassinate Trump before November's election.

Yet despite that charged history, many former officials, pundits and newspaper editorials in Iran have openly called for the government to engage with Trump in the week since his reelection. Shargh, the main reformist daily newspaper, said in a front-page editorial that Iran's new, more moderate president, Masoud Pezeshkian, must "avoid past mistakes and assume a pragmatic and multidimensional policy."

And many in Pezeshkian's government agree, according to five Iranian officials who asked that their names not be published because they were not authorized to discuss government policy. They say Trump loves to make deals where others have failed, and that his outsize dominance in the Republican Party could give any potential agreement more staying power. That might give an opening for some kind of lasting deal with the United States, they argue.

"Do not lose this historic opportunity for change in Iran-U.S. relations," wrote a prominent politician and former political adviser to Iran's government, Hamid Aboutalebi, in an open letter to Iran's president. He advised Pezeshkian to congratulate Trump on winning the election and set a new tone for a pragmatic and forward-looking policy.

Still, critical decisions in Iran are made by the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and he banned negotiations with Trump during his first term. In Iran's factional politics, even if Pezeshkian wanted to negotiate with Trump, he would have to get Khamenei's approval.

And many conservatives, including some in the powerful Revolutionary Guard, oppose any engagement with Trump. The U.S. Justice Department has said that Iran's Revolutionary Guard hacked Trump's campaign computers and spread disinformation online in an attempt to influence the presidential election. On Friday, federal prosecutors in Manhattan revealed an effort by Iran to assassinate Trump.

Iran's foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, called those charges a "fabricated" scenario in a post on the social platform X on Saturday. He said Iran respected the American people's choice in electing their president, and that the path forward for Iran and the U.S. begins with mutual "respect" and "confidence building."

Reza Salehi, a conservative analyst in Tehran, Iran, close to the country's hardline political faction, said in an interview that negotiation with Trump would be politically challenging for Iran's new government. Conservatives have already voiced their disapproval, saying any engagement would be a betrayal of Gen. Qassem Soleimani, whose assassination Trump ordered in 2020.

Hamshahri, a conservative newspaper run by Tehran's municipal government, ran front page photos of Trump in an orange jumpsuit and handcuffs with the headline: "The return of the killer." Still, even Salehi said: ''I'm going to go against this position and say that Trump will benefit Iran compared to his predecessor." He added: "He is into making deals; he is into ending wars and against starting new ones."

Even those who want to engage with Trump say the country's foreign policy for a Trump era will largely depend on how Trump approaches Iran and the Middle East, as well as who he selects for his administration, according to the five officials. Trump recently said he does not seek to harm Iran, and his main demand was that the country not develop nuclear weapons. But at another point during the campaign, he appeared to give Israel a green light to bomb Iran's nuclear sites. He said Israel should "hit the nuclear first and worry about the rest later."

And on Sunday in a video statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had spoken to Trump and "we see eye-to-eye on the Iranian threat in all its aspects, and on the dangers they reflect."