Iran s Hardline Generals Line up to Replace Hassan Rouhani as President
On 3/9/21 at 11:21 AM EST
Prominent members of Iran s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps are lining up for this summer s presidential election, which marks the end of moderate President Hassan Rouhani s term and likely a pivot to a more combative and inflexible regime in Tehran.
IRGC figures are hoping to capitalize on a conservative wave, buoyed by the failure of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action nuclear deal, former President Donald Trump s punitive maximum pressure campaign on Tehran, and Ayatollah Ali Khamenei s desire to secure the future of the Iranian theocracy.
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By Amb. Dore Gold web posted March 8, 2021
“There is less access, let’s face it.” This is how Rafael Mariano Gross, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), summarized the results of his talks with the Iranians during mid-February, just before a new Iranian law mandated by the parliament went into effect, cutting back the monitoring of the Iranian nuclear program. There would be no more “snap inspections” by the West on Iranian facilities.
There was little reason to celebrate the new understanding, for the Iranians followed this latest deal with new statements about their program which were clearly disturbing. The Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, declared that Iran’s uranium enrichment levels would no longer be limited to 20 percent. “We may even increase enrichment to 60 percent.” The JCPOA, also known as the 2015 “Iran deal,” limited enrichment to just 3.67 percen
7 Mar 2021
Former Labour prime minister and Iraq War architect Tony Blair’s reinvention as a Covid sage has suffered a setback after segments of his autobiography in which he boasts of doing “the minimum” to prepare for a “panpanic” resurfaced.
Blair, who has been described as “the most hated man in Britain”, has enjoyed an unexpected surge in credibility, if not grassroots popularity, over the course of the pandemic, with his pronouncements on vaccines and Covid passports even earning his a shock endorsement of sorts from longtime sparring partner Nigel Farage.
However, the vague sense of general sagacity which he has achieved may have been fatally undermined by excerpts from his own 2011 autobiography unearthed by
Cherie Blair and her husband, former prime minister Tony Blair
Credit: Yui Mok
Cherie Blair’s legal firm has been awarded a contract to defend an ‘autocratic’ regime that receives advice from her husband’s company.
Mrs Blair’s firm, Omnia Strategy, has been hired by Serbia over allegations the Balkan State is harassing an independent television and internet company, in an attempt by the ruling party to “tighten its grip on power”.
Tony Blair, through the eponymous Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, has been advising Serbia for the past six years. The contract was originally funded by the United Arab Emirates.