Americans Carelessly Discount Substantive Candidacy Prerequisites for Holding Public Office

Voters Prefer Personality over Character, Pageantry over demonstrated Qualification

As U.S. leaders persist in promulgating a delusion of U.S. “exceptionalism”; and, in their outbursts, persist in disparaging leaders and processes of other countries, it seems an appropriate time to look at Iran’s and the USA’s current heads of state and each country’s basic requirements for the presidency.  

I

slamic Republic of Iran (Persia)

Current President: Hassan Rouhani

Qualifications

• Hassan Rouhani: politician, lawyer, academic, former diplomat and Islamic cleric; seventh President of the Islamic Republic of Iran (August 3, 2013 - )
• First elected to the Majlis, the Parliament of Iran (1980, serving 20 years, 1980-2000, in positions including deputy speaker, head of defense committee, foreign policy committee); 
• Deputy speaker of the fourth and fifth terms of the Parliament of Iran (Majlis) and Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council [1989- 2005, during which he served as his country’s top negotiator with the EU three (UK, France, and Germany) on nuclear technology in Iran]; 
• Member of the Supreme National Security Council (1989- )
• Member of the Supreme National Security Council (1989 - ); member of Iran’s Assembly of Experts (1999 - )

• Dr. Rouhani also retains academic activities: member of the board of trustees of Tehran Universities and North Region (1995-1999); director of Center for Strategic Research (1991- ); managing editor of three academic and research quarterlies in Persian and English: Rahbord (Strategy), Foreign Relations, and the Iranian Review of Foreign Affairs.

Dr. Rouhani’s Education

• Ph.D. Constitutional Law, Glasgow Caledonian University, UK (Thesis ‘The Flexibility of Shariah; Islamic Law’)
• M. Phil. Law, Glasgow Caledonian University, UK (Thesis: ‘The Islamic legislative power’)
• B. A. Judicial Law, University of Tehran

To his credit about 100 books and scientific papers; in 20 years, supervision of “development and writing of more than 700 important strategic studies, with policy recommendations”

Sample of Rouhani’s books  

• National Security and Nuclear Diplomacy (October 2011)
• National Security and Economic System of Iran (August 2010)
• Islamic Political Thought; Vol. 1: Conceptual Framework (December 2009)
• Islamic Political Thought; Vol. 2: Foreign Policy (December 2009)
• Islamic Political Thought; Vol. 3: Cultural and Social Issues – December 2009
• Memoirs of Dr. Hassan Rouhani; Vol. 1: The Islamic Revolution (2008)
• An Introduction to the History of Shia’ Imams (2012)
• Age of Legal Capacity and Responsibility (October 2012)
• Introduction to Islamic Countries (2008)

The President of Iran is elected for a four-year term in a national election by universal adult suffrage for people who are at least 18 years old.

U

nited States of America 

Current President: Donald John Trump 

        Qualifications

• The 45th and current president of the United States has no prior experience, training or education in government or public service

• Donald Trump entered the U.S. presidency and prior candidacy with experience as a businessman and television personality.

Political party affiliations registered:

• 1987 Republican Party (in Manhattan, NY) 
• [Rumors of a Trump run for the U.S. presidency (though objectively unqualified) in 1988 prompted “then U.S. Senator John Kerry (Democrat from Massachusetts), House Speaker Jim Wright of Texas, and Arkansas Congressman Beryl Anthony Jr. (to invite) Trump to host a fundraising dinner for Democratic Congressional candidates and to switch parties.”]
• 1999 Reform Party
• 2001 Democratic Party
• 2009- Republican Party

• Partisan Political donor through 2010: U.S. Democratic and Republican parties, party committees, and candidates. 

• Rated #10 “most admired man in America.” (Gallup poll 1988) yet by any objective measure unqualified for any public office position or head of state.

The President of the United States is elected for a four-year term with a possible reelection to no more than a second four-year term (22nd Amendment).

S

tandards and Process for the Presidency 

Iran 

The Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Iran mandates these qualifications to run for the presidency:

• Iranian origin
• Iranian nationality
• Administrative capacity and resourcefulness
• Good past record
• Trustworthiness and piety
• Convinced belief in the fundamental principles of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the official madhhab (Madhhab: “‘way of act’” or manner of being, “a school of thought within Islamic jurisprudence) of the country.

Disqualifiers

• Within these guidelines — candidates deemed unacceptable are vetoed by the Council of Guardians, a twelve-member body consisting of six clerics (selected by Iran’s Supreme Leader) and six lawyers (proposed by the Supreme Leader-appointed head of Iran’s judicial system, and voted in by the Parliament).

• “The approval process is considered to be a check on the president’s power, and usually amounts to a small number of candidates being approved. The procedures for presidential election and all other elections in Iran are outlined by the Supreme Leader.”

S

tandards and Process for the Presidency

United States of America

The Constitution of the United States of America (Article II, Section 1, Clause 5) mandates these (almost-nonexistent) qualifications to run for and hold the office of president:

• Natural-born U.S. citizenship
• At least thirty-five years of age
• Residency in the United States for at least fourteen years.

Disqualifiers

• The U.S. Senate has the option of disqualifying individuals convicted in impeachment cases from holding federal office in the future (Article I, Section 3, Clause 7)

• Subject to reversal by a two-thirds vote of each house of Congress (Section 3 of the 14th Amendment), a candidate may be disqualified for the U.S. presidency if he/she “swore an oath to support the Constitution and later rebelled against the United States.”

• No one may be elected to the U.S. presidency “more than twice (or once, if the person serves as president or acting president for more than two years of a presidential term to which someone else was originally elected)” (22nd Amendment)

C

urrent Events: United States - Iran Relations

“Iran has been loyal to its international commitments and agreements, and it was the other side that violated all agreements and regulations. Right now, everyone in the world considers the US administration as a government that violates its commitments and promises”— President Hassan Rouhani speaking at the opening ceremony of Salam Terminal-Gallery of Imam Khomeini Airport City:

“Despite all hardships and pressures that the enemies have imposed on us with the aim of convincing our people that the country’s development has stopped and the people are hopeless about the future, we are witnessing new developments in the economy of the country every day…. The people of Iran will disappoint the enemies by being hopeful and fervent, preventing them from reaching their goals.” June 18, 2019 http://www.president.ir/en/110155

 U.S. President

Though looking “forward to the day when ‘sanctions come off Iran, and they become a productive and prosperous nation again …

“We are putting major additional Sanctions on.’”— U.S. President Donald Trump on social media, reported in the press June 22, 2019

Sources

Iran, Hassan Rouhani https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hassan_Rouhani#Political_career_during_the_1980s_and_1990s

Dr. Hassan Rouhani, Honorable President of the Islamic Republic of Iran http://www.president.ir/en/president/biography

Madhhab https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madhhab

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_Iran#Qualifications_and_election

USA, Donald Trump

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Trump

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_United_States

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Two_of_the_United_States_Constitution#Clause_5:_Qualifications_for_office

Clause 5: Qualifications for office: Section 1 of Article Two of the United States Constitution sets forth the eligibility requirements for serving as president of the United States: No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_Two_of_the_United_States_Constitution#Clause_5:_Qualifications_for_office

President while opening IKAC’s Salam Terminal-Gallery: “Enemies’ war with Iranians based on war of hope, willpower/ Iranian nation to win the war of willpower/ Developing tourism a key goal of gov’t/ Appreciating all people at work in air industry” June 18, 2019  http://www.president.ir/en/110155

RT “Trump says ‘major additional sanctions’ on Iran to come Monday” June 22, 2019

https://www.rt.com/news/462470-trump-iran-additional-sanctions/

 

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