Jerusalem—On Friday, Iranians head to the polls for the first time since the country’s nuclear deal with world powers took effect. The vote will provide the first clue as to whether key Western peddlers of the deal will receive what they hoped for: a more moderate, open Iran.

According to Prof. Rabi Uzi, director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University, the chance of such a positive change is “wishful thinking.”

Speaking to about a dozen of us at a media gathering in Jerusalem on Wednesday, Uzi stated that “those who orchestrated the deal did so on the assumption that with the passage of time, the deal would recuperate Iran economically, and turn them into a player that would stabilize the region. … I think that the results are going to tell us what is the future prospect of Iran after the deal. I dare say that in my opinion, I think that the hard-liners are going to get the upper hand.”

This was kind of shocking for me to hear. Considering Tel Aviv University’s general leftist approach, I assumed their lead professor on Middle East affairs would carry a somewhat hopeful message regarding the Iranian elections.

I was wrong. It seems that while Israelis can argue among themselves about most things, the one thing they can agree on is Iran.

Some Western leaders and commentators say they hope that these elections will bring moderate voices into power, providing the West with at least some positive fruit from the nuclear deal.

But in Israel, even on the left, there are no such rose-colored glasses.

According to Uzi, there is currently no indication that moderates will come out of the election cycle in a stronger position. Much to the contrary, the hard-liners in Iran have already ensured a positive result by disqualifying most of the moderates from being on the ballot. Of the 12,000 candidates who wanted to be part of the election, almost half were vetoed by the Guardian Council, a 12-person body of Iranian clerics. A disproportionately high number of those banned were moderates.

Iranians will be voting on only those who remain in the field, vetted by the hard-liner Guardian Council.

Specifically, the vote will be for the membership of two bodies: the large legislative body known as the Majlis and the Assembly of Experts. The latter body is made up of only 88 members and holds the critical function of electing the supreme leader. Current supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is old and in poor health. It is likely that the Assembly of Experts voted in on Friday will elect the next supreme leader of Iran. That is why this is such a powerfully important election. And yet, at least according to Uzi, the new Majlis and the Assembly of Experts are all but guaranteed to be chock-full of hard-liners.

How can he be confident? Because the nuclear deal has reinforced the position of hard-liners such as Ayatollah Khamenei at the expense of the few, suppressed voices in Iran who are calling for change.

“Many fighters for liberation inside Iran are saying that the deal served only to strengthen the regime, and served as a hindrance to … the Iranian Spring,” Uzi said.

Uzi was referring to the 2011 Arab Spring that swept through the Middle East. Popular uprisings in the streets toppled long-standing leader after long-standing leader: Tunisian President Zine el Abidine Ben Ali, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh. The violent uprising against Bashar Assad in Syria is about to head into its sixth bloody year.

When the Arab Spring made it to Tehran, the regime cracked down and suppressed it. In other countries, this type of crackdown led to more uprisings, as well as nations like the United States lending support to the oppressed.

With protests underway in Tunisia against a pro-U.S. leader … the U.S. president made statements supporting the protesters. With protests underway in Egypt against a longtime American ally, Mubarak, the United States lent its support to … the protesters. With protests and outright war underway in Libya against a much-moderated, much more cooperative leader, the U.S. literally went to war against him through nato and provided the firepower that ultimately helped kill him.

With protests underway in Iran against an oppressive, intolerant, hard-line regime that fuses religion and state, the U.S. lent its support to … the regime. The Green Movement, as it was called, was forcefully put down by the Islamic regime. The regime that calls America the Great Satan and has little love for the ideals of 1776, liberty, freedom and democracy received not even a sober rebuke from the United States of America.

In hindsight, it’s clear that the U.S. administration had different plans for dealing with Iran.

“The deal served to bolster Iran, ayatollahs and Revolutionary Guards alike, economically and politically,” Uzi said. “If there was any chance of an Iranian Spring, it is becoming very far-fetched.”

It is not the protesters nor the Iranian people that the United States (and the West) has courted under the current administration. It was the Iranian regime. This favor was deemed necessary in order to reach a deal that notionally limited Iran’s nuclear program in return for the easing of financial sanctions against Iran. Since the regime hard-liners were able to get the sanctions removed without any reciprocal change in behavior, it has only strengthened position of leadership of the nation.

In his discussion, the professor went on to describe with distressing clarity and zeal that Iran’s ambition since the shah’s ouster in 1979 has always been the same: to project its power across the Middle East as the regional hegemon.

“Iranian hard-liners and the regime take it as a mission to show the world that, in spite of the deal, it hasn’t changed,” Uzi said.

Except now, in the aftermath of the post-nuclear deal, Iran has the ability to implement that plan. Now that Iran is on the road to economic recovery, without being forced to change its ideology, the hard-liners in Iran can push forward with their regional ambitions.

If Friday’s election sees the odd reformer make it into parliament or even the Assembly of Experts, it will only be to give the impression of a functioning democracy. Iran’s hard line is now firmer than ever.

From 1979 till today, the goal of the Islamic Republic of Iran has remained the same: complete domination of the Middle East. Yet, until Jan. 16, 2016, the United States refused to let that happen. But on that day, it implemented a nuclear deal that hands the Middle East to Iran.

Now that Iran has the wealth, international legitimacy and political clout to pursue its decades-old goal, don’t look for a Guardian Council-approved election to do a fraction of what the abortive Green Movement was dreaming of.

And in this way, as Uzi put it with the final words of his presentation, “This is a different Iran.”

Listen to Prof. Rabi Uzi discuss the Iranian elections.