Can Nikki Haley be the next US president?

According to The Hill, the political wing of the conservative network led by billionaire Charles Koch has endorsed former South Carolina Governor, Nikki Haley for president, throwing its weight behind a top Republican challenger to former President Trump.

Americans for Prosperity Action (AFP) released a memo Tuesday backing Haley, who served as ambassador to the UN during the Trump administration, arguing she is the strongest candidate to defeat Trump in the GOP primaries as well as President Biden in next year’s general election.

This marks the first time the deep-pocketed group has thrown its support behind a Republican candidate in a presidential primary and opens up vast resources for Haley’s challenge to Trump.

“AFP Action is proud to throw our full support behind Nikki Haley, who offers America the opportunity to turn the page on the current political era, to win the Republican primary and defeat Joe Biden next November,” reads the memo from AFP senior adviser Emily Seidel.

“She has what it takes to lead a policy agenda to take on our nation’s biggest challenges and help ensure our country’s best days are ahead. With the grassroots and data capability we bring to bear in this race, no other organization is better equipped to help her do it,” it continued.

The memo stated the group was getting involved in a presidential primary for the first time because it wants a candidate who will turn the page on the past. It added that Trump and Biden will only further perpetuate the country’s downward spiral in politics.

This comes nearly a year after the conservative network signaled it would not back Trump in the Republican primary, saying it would support a candidate who represents a new chapter. The endorsement demonstrates the group’s attempt to distance the Republican Party from Trump, who the group said would lose to Biden.

“In sharp contrast to recent elections that were dominated by the negative baggage of Donald Trump and in which good candidates lost races that should have been won, Nikki Haley, at the top of the ticket, would boost candidates up and down the ballot, winning the key independent and moderate voters that Trump has no chance to win,” the memo states.

Haley has battled Florida Governor Ron DeSantis as the top challenger to Trump in the GOP race and has seen her standing in polls tick up amid several strong debate performances. Trump, for his part, has maintained large leads in polls both nationally and in early voting states.

DeSantis’s campaign panned the AFP Action endorsement in a statement released Tuesday, saying the establishment is lining up behind a moderate who has no mathematical pathway of defeating the former president.

AFP Action acknowledged DeSantis in its memo, praising him as a strong advocate for many important freedom-oriented policies and fiscal responsibility in the Sunshine State. The group noted that it endorsed his successful gubernatorial reelection bid last year.

“We also understand that some of the Governor’s supporters, including some who support AFP, will be disappointed in our decision,” the memo reads.

“However, as the 2024 primary season heats up, we are entering a time period that demands choices. Donald Trump won the nomination in 2016 largely because of a divided primary field, and we must not allow that to happen again, particularly when the stakes are even higher in 2024.”

Haley welcomed the group’s endorsement in a statement, reiterating that the 2024 election “is a choice between freedom and socialism, individual liberty and big government, fiscal responsibility and spiraling debt.”

Americans for Prosperity

 

AMERICANS FOR PROSPERITY CHARLES KOCH JOE BIDEN NIKKI HALEY NIKKI HALEY RON DESANTIS RON DESANTIS

 

 

Iranian presidential elections and fate of JCPOA negotiations

The next elections in Iran are scheduled for 18th June 2021. It is but obvious that the best efforts of President Rouhani’s team would be to get the sanctions imposed on the country removed and make a place for themselves in the history. He has stated that within the last 100 days of his presidency he would be able to get the sanctions lifted and relieve the economy.

As against this, the European countries, especially those not too keen in removing the sanctions may chose to slow down the process. Their choice would be to pressurize the newly elected regime to agree on revised terms and conditions.

The Vienna negotiations entered their third week on Tuesday 27th April 2021. Seyed Abbas Araghchi, Iran’s top negotiator, described the last meeting of the Joint Commission of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Actions (JCPOA) ‘on the right track’.

 However, it is evident that a confrontation is going on. Iran, China and Russia unanimously and unequivocally called for the immediate lifting of the sanctions. Iran is patiently waiting for E3 (Germany, France and Britain) to call on the US to lift all the sanctions.

But that is unlikely to happen, as E3 has shown in the past that they have no free will of their own. Time and again, they have followed what the US has said.

The Biden administration is said to be looking into possibilities of easing banking, oil and finance sanctions on Iran. Immediate removal of all sanctions in a verifiable way is the only demand Iran has.

The JCPOA experience proves that when sanctions are lifted on paper, nothing practical is done. After the JCPOA, Iran kept struggling with issues such as transferring its money withheld in other countries. 

The Biden administration must understand that delaying tactics will not help. Leader of the Islamic Revolution is asking all sides not to engage in ‘erosive and prolonged’ negotiations, but expedite the process. Yet, the United States keeps saying that they do not want to rush into a deal. 

“We expect this to be a long process. And we're very much at just the beginning period,” Jen Psaki, the White House spokesperson, said on April 8.

The US seems to be insisting that the negotiations would take longer than expected. History suggests that the US is likely to wait and see what happens in the elections, as they reportedly did in 2013, when John Kerry halted the negotiations. 

There are many details that need to be ironed out. For example, the sanctions on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), along with the sanctions on the office of Ayatollah Khamenei, Leader of the Islamic Revolution, need to be resolved. According to the Wall Street Journal, there is a big difference of opinion about the removal of sanctions on these two sides.

As regards stance of potential presidential candidates, they have announced their plans for the continuation of negotiations, if elected.

Rostam Ghasemi, former Minister of Petroleum during Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s administration and a presidential candidate, stated that sanctions removal is his first priority, and he will take the control of the negotiations himself if elected. 

Making the sanctions ineffective is his next priority. “If I want to negotiate, I will strengthen the country’s economy,” Ghasemi said.

“We should change the ‘imploring diplomacy’ to the diplomacy of power,” he said on his possible government’s diplomacy.

He added that the United States “must return to the JCPOA without any preconditions.”

Saeed Jalili, another potential and highly anticipated presidential candidate, is expected to continue the negotiations if elected. Based on his past experience as the Secretary General of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, and him being Iran’s Chief Nuclear Negotiator between 2010 and 2013, it is likely that he would continue the negotiations. 

Saeed Mohammad, the former Director of Khatam-al -Anbiya Construction Headquarters and a mysterious figure to many Iranians, has officially announced that he is running for president.

He has also declared that he is open to negotiations, on the condition that Iran “strengthens itself internally.”