Iran's parliament speaker woke up Wednesday, read the American midterm results, and decided to endorse them. He posted the endorsement on X, a platform his own government blocks for most of the people who'd have to vote for him.

I've covered a lot of foreign meddling in U.S. elections. This is the first time someone meddled after the polls closed and asked for credit.

Here's what's real, per the BBC, CNBC and Iran International. Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Iran's parliament speaker and its chief negotiator in talks with Washington, posted his reaction to the U.S. midterm vote: "Conscience or the cost of living, Americans said NO TO WAR, and we endorse this message."

Then came the follow-up. If the U.S. government "betrays their public will to serve international paymasters and blackmailers," he wrote, "it will learn our NO comes with a Nightmare."

So the man is deeply concerned about the American public's will. Touching. Back home, the public's will is supervised by a supreme leader whose last name was already on the office door.

Now, the cost-of-living part. He's not wrong that Americans paid a lot this week. AAA put the national average for regular gas at $4.15 on Election Day, the highest Election Day price on record. On February 28, the day the war started, it was $2.98.

A big reason is the Strait of Hormuz, the channel a fifth of the world's oil and gas normally moves through. It has been effectively closed since the war began, thanks to Iranian attacks on commercial ships and the U.S. blockade.

And on the very same Wednesday Ghalibaf was endorsing the American driver, Iran's Revolutionary Guard announced that four oil tankers caught fire after hitting naval sea mines in the strait. That's the Guard's own claim; the BBC hasn't verified it. Either way, they're bragging about it.

That's the guy who set your kitchen on fire leaving a five-star review of your smoke detector.

Meanwhile, the actual negotiating continues to go nowhere at full speed. Indirect talks, mediated by Qatar, have been stalled for months. Iran's foreign ministry says they're still built on the seven-step proposal Tehran submitted in September, which has now been "condensed, making it possible to implement it within two days."

It took them two months to make a two-day plan. At that rate, the five-minute version arrives sometime around the next midterms.

On the sewer scale, Ghalibaf's victory lap earns four rats out of five. The fifth rat is being held in reserve for the day Iranians get to vote in an election where the results aren't endorsed in advance.

I'll give him this much: he understands American politics better than he lets on. He knows gas prices decide elections. He just left out which country keeps floating explosives in the gas.

Ghalibaf endorsed the message. Somewhere in the Strait of Hormuz, a tanker crew is still waiting for him to endorse the part about not hitting the mines.

And here's your bill: regular gas averaged $4.15 a gallon on Election Day, per AAA, up $1.17 from the day the war began, so a 15-gallon fill-up now costs you about $17.55 more than it did in February, and nobody in Tehran is endorsing that.

This article is satire. The Demorat is a parody news site; real facts are drawn from the linked sources, and jokes, invented scenes, and fictional characters are not real.

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