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Iran eyes US presidential elections, devising strategies on how to approach winner
Despite some of its public statements, the Iranian regime is clearly hoping for a victory by former U.S. vice president and current presidential Democratic candidate Joe Biden on Nov. 3, though this doesn’t mean that Iran will immediately enter into negotiations or that it will reduce its regional aggression afterwards, Israeli observers have said.
“The Iranians declare all off the time that for them, it doesn’t matter who will be elected. For them, Biden and [U.S. President Donald] Trump are both problematic. They say that the U.S. activates pressure on Iran, and that sanctions have harmed the Iranian people,” Col. (res.) Udi Evental, a senior research fellow at the Institute for Policy and Strategy at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, told JNS.
But aside from its public messaging, “they very much hope that Biden will win,” he added.
Whoever wins the U.S. presidential elections will likely encounter an Iranian demand to return to the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), as well as compensation for Iran for the economic harm done to it, said Evental.
Still, it remains clear that Iran is deeply interested in a Biden victory, he stated. In recent weeks, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal reported that Iran has ordered its militias in Iraq to decrease attacks on U.S. targets there in order to avoid giving Trump an excuse to strike back, as a confrontation could provide a last-minute boost for the incumbent.
The reports have mentioned Iranian directives to the militias to restrain themselves, while also seeing Iran itself decrease provocations in the Gulf region.
“The idea is to avoid giving Trump an excuse to act against them, which could change the direction of polls,” said Evental.
On Oct. 11, Iranian-backed Iraqi militia factions declared a suspension of rocket attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq “on condition” that the Iraqi government presents a timetable for a U.S. withdrawal.
‘Everything is frozen until after the elections’
Professor Uzi Rabi, director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies at Tel Aviv University, concurred, saying “it’s clear that in principle, there are people in the Iranian regime who wish and maybe even pray that it is Biden they meet after the elections.”
Rabi said the Islamic Republic has had “a good experience with Democratic Party and with Biden as vice president when the JCPOA was formulated. This was very comfortable for Iran. The agreement let Iran do what it considered vital without violating the JCPOA.”
Iran is also “preparing the ground diplomatically, through lobby groups and other organizations working on its behalf, to pass on lots of hints that agreements with it can be reached,” said Rabi, adding that such messages are deceitful. “These are things they don’t at all plan on doing.”
Rabi said that in the event of a Biden victory, he hopes that the Democratic candidate will “stand on guard” in negotiations with Iran and apply lessons learned from the 2015 deal. The Iranians, for their part, are planning to immediately resume trade with Europe, he said, and are using relations with China as a bargaining chip.
“Iran has been sitting on the fence for a number of months and not responding to incidents that they otherwise would have responded to. Everything is frozen until after the elections, after which things will look different,” he said.
Evental shared the assessment, saying Iran’s calculation of attempting to avoid giving Trump a late surge has led to its reduction in regional confrontational steps.
In regard to the Iranian nuclear program, Tehran has been violating the JCPOA by accumulating uranium far beyond the permitted quantity, according to Evental, but in a calculated and cautious manner. “They are in violation, but they haven’t enriched uranium to 20 percent,” he said. “They are not bursting forward in their nuclear program. Rather, they are taking gradual, measured, steps.”
After the elections, in the event of a re-election victory by Trump, it is unlikely that the Iranians will “crawl back to the negotiations table,” said Evental, despite assessments by the Trump administration that Iran cannot absorb another four years of punishing sanctions.
“I’m not at all sure they will do that,” he said. “I believe that if Trump wins, the Iranians will first return to their own maximum pressure campaign. We have seen that in the past, this involves attacking oil tankers with limpet mines and attacks on Saudi infrastructure.
“They will move forward on their nuclear program. They could increase tensions in the region, believing that this will create bargaining chips for negotiations,” he continued. “And in the end, they will want to return to negotiations, but not from a position of weakness.”
‘If Iran prefers Biden, Hezbollah does as well’
In the event of a Biden victory, it remains unclear how a Democratic administration would reach an agreement with Iran. “Will Biden give up on sanctions? Even if he does so, Iran could still demand compensation. In addition, Iran possesses research-and-development capabilities on advanced centrifuges in violation of the agreement. How does that get rolled back?” he asked.
No less importantly, Iran is scheduled to hold presidential elections in June, pointed out Evental, and by all accounts, a hardline conservative is likely to replace President Hassan Rouhani. The legislative elections, held in February, produced a landslide victory for the conservatives. “It is not clear that Iran can make dramatic decisions on the nuclear program because we don’t know whether the Iranian Supreme Leader [Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] will allow Rouhani—a kind of lame-duck president—to do so,” explained Evental. “Iran may not be able to make significant elections until its own elections in June.”
Also read: Iran has ‘more to lose than to gain’ from Azerbaijan victory
Hezbollah, for its part, is deeply engaged with Lebanon’s internal economic-political crisis, as well as its ongoing tensions with Israel, and threats to retaliate for the death of one of its operatives in a reported Israeli strike in Syria in July.
“If Iran prefers Biden, Hezbollah does as well,” stated Evental.
Iran’s economic distress has led to a moderate reduction in Iranian funding of Hezbollah, estimated at around $700 million per year, he said, and “if Iran manages to escape sanctions pressure, that will also serve Hezbollah. It is therefore synchronized with Iran in terms of its preferences for the U.S. elections outcome.”
JNS
The Senate has summoned the National Security Adviser, Malam Nuhu Ribadu, to provide a briefing on the alleged funding of Boko Haram by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
Also invited are the heads of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Department of State Security Services (DSS).
According to the upper legislative chamber, the meeting with the heads of these security agencies will be in close session.
The senate’s resolution follows a motion sponsored by Sen. Ali Ndume (APC-Borno) during the plenary session on Wednesday in Abuja.
The motion was prompted by a trending social media video in which U.S. Congressman Scott Perry claimed that the U.S. aid agency, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), had funded terrorist organisations, including Boko Haram.
Perry, a Republican representative from Pennsylvania, made this claim during the inaugural hearing of the Sub-committee on Delivering on Government Efficiency.
The session, titled “The War on Waste: Stamping out the Scourge of Improper Payments and Fraud,” focused on alleged misappropriations of taxpayer funds.
Ndume said the social media had been awash with the trending video of a United States Republican congressman, Scott Perry representing Pennsylvania alleged that USAID had been funding terrorist organisations across the world, Boko Haram inclusive.
He said that the devastation caused by Boko Haram in the North-East region of Nigeria and other parts of the country, included bombing, the UN office in Abuja and police headquarters among other attacks.
He stated that the attacks had become a major concern, causing the loss of thousands of Nigerian lives and widespread destruction of property, leading to an unprecedented level of internal displacement across the country.
Ndume noted that over the years, the Federal Government had made significant efforts to implement measures aimed at curbing the activities of terrorist groups, spending substantial resources.
However, these efforts appeared to have yielded limited results, as terrorist activities persisted.
He said that the monumental devastation caused by Boko Haram in Nigeria should be a matter of concern as it had dented the image of the country among the community of nations.
Ndume said allegations began to emerge at this point that some international organisations were behind the unwholesome acts.
He therefore added that urgent steps needed to be taken by the federal government to unravel the mystery.
Contributing Sen.Shehu Kaka (APC-Borno), who seconded the motion said the allegation was weighty, saying that banditry and other forms of criminality had affected the 109 senatorial districts.
He emphasised that efforts should be focused on uncovering the sources of funding for Boko Haram.
Sen. Abdul Ningi (PDP-Bauchi) said that it would be impossible for the senate to adequately address the matter in plenary without the input of relevant security agencies, who should be invited to brief the senate on the issue.
Ningi, therefore, urged the senate to adopt a single motion to invite the NSA, as well as the heads of the DSS, NIA, and DIA, to brief the senate on the allegation.
In his remarks, Senate President, Godswill Akpabio thanked Ningi for his contribution and emphasised that the concerned security agencies should brief the senate in a closed session.
He noted that such sensitive security matters should not be discussed in public.
…Revokes ‘nearly 80 destructive radical executive actions’ of Biden administration
On Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an order proclaiming that there are only two biological sexes: male and female.
Trump signed the order from the White House just hours after his inauguration.
“My Administration will defend women’s rights and protect freedom of conscience by using clear and accurate language and policies that recognise women are biologically female, and men are biologically male,” the order states.
“It is the policy of the United States to recognise two sexes – male and female.
“These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and incontrovertible reality.”
The order directs that official government documents, such as passports and visas, reflect male and female as the only two sexes.
“The erasure of sex in language and policy has a corrosive impact not just on women but on the validity of the entire American system,” the order states, referring to “gender ideology extremism.”
U.S. presidents can implement political priorities with the help of so-called executive orders without the approval of the U.S. Congress.
However, they can also be challenged in court more easily than laws.
Trump had announced during his election campaign that he would take political measures against the rights of transgender people in the United States.
He spoke of “transgender lunacy” and “child sexual mutilation,” and repeatedly made disparaging comments about those affected.
The participation of trans women in sports events was particularly made an election campaign topic by the Republicans.
Trans people or transgender individuals are those who do not feel they belong to the gender they were born as.
Trump’s statements are part of a broader societal debate in the U.S., where conservative circles are increasingly demanding measures against the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT+) individuals.
Tech billionaire Elon Musk, one of Trump’s closest confidants, has also expressed criticism of medical treatments for trans young people.
His child, Vivian Jenna Wilson, who has lived openly as a trans woman since 2020, has publicly criticised him for his stance.
In another development, U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday took gigantic steps to revoke immediate past U.S. President Joe Biden’s policies by signing executive orders.
Trump signed a few other executive orders in front of the crowd at Capital One Arena in Washington, D.C., just a few hours after being sworn in as the 47th president of the United States, including the revocation of nearly 80 executive orders from the Biden administration.
“I’m revoking nearly 80 destructive radical executive actions of the previous administration,” Trump told the crowd at the signing ceremony.
Trump signed an executive order to delay the TikTok ban imposed by the Biden administration by 75 days “to permit my Administration an opportunity to determine the appropriate course of action concerning TikTok.”
He also signed an executive order that will let the United States withdraw from the World Health Organisation.
Trump also declared a national energy emergency in an executive order with an eye on driving down energy costs.
As the first of this kind declared by the U.S. Federal Government, the emergency is expected to enable the government to crank up energy production by tapping emergency powers.
The United States is the largest producer of both crude oil and natural gas and is also the top exporter of liquified natural gas (LNG) globally.
The incoming U.S. president also signed an executive order to pull the United States out of the Paris climate accord.
The move means the United States will pull out of the Paris climate accord for the second time.
During his inauguration speech, Trump, who has long regarded clean energy as expensive and wasteful, also vowed to redouble the efforts to extract and utilise fossil fuels.
“I will also declare a national energy emergency. We will drill, baby, drill,” he said.
“We have something that no other manufacturing nation will ever have — the largest amount of oil and gas of any country on Earth,” Trump claimed. “And we are going to use it.”
Adopted in December 2015, the Paris Agreement is an international endeavour to tackle human-caused global warming and related crises, which the United States formally joined in September 2016.
The first Trump administration officially let the United States, one of the world’s top emitters of greenhouse gases, exit the Paris climate accord in November 2020, dealing a major blow to international efforts to combat the climate crisis.
The latest executive order among many others by Trump will mark another round of back-and-forth moves regarding the U.S. commitment to dealing with climate change on the global stage.
Joe Biden, who succeeded Trump in becoming the 46th U.S. president in 2021, signed an executive order on Jan. 20, 2021 — his first day in office — to bring the United States back into the Paris climate accord.
– dpa, with additional information from Xinhua
A seminar on “Building greener and more Resilient Supply Chains” was held in Geneva as part of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Public Forum 2024.
It was co-hosted by the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) and the International Trade Centre (ITC).
The four-day public forum would feature over 130 sessions with nearly 4,400 participants from government, business, academia, and civil society.
CCPIT Chairman Ren Hongbin said that today’s globalised economy created both opportunities and challenges.
He emphasised the need to embrace openness and inclusiveness while upholding true multilateralism.
He also stressed that building greener and more resilient supply chains was crucial to addressing global challenges.
ITC Deputy Executive Director Dorothy Tembo underscored the ITC’s commitment to collaborating with partners to offer technical assistance to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
It would offer assistance, especially to those in developing countries, to tap into the potential of cross-border e-commerce.
She said the goal was to build greener supply chains and reduce the carbon footprint of e-commerce, thereby contributing more to sustainable development.
In its Digital Economy Report 2024, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) emphasised the urgent need to adopt an environmentally sustainable and inclusive digital strategy, said UNCTAD’s head of E-Commerce and Digital Economy.
Torbjorn Frederick stressed that China had issued innovative guidelines promoting the sustainable development of the digital economy.
– Xinhua
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