All posts tagged: HardLine

Who is Ghalibaf? Iran’s hard-line speaker rises as Trump talks peace

Who is Ghalibaf? Iran’s hard-line speaker rises as Trump talks peace

Published by Sam Flores

Rather than pursue university studies or work in his father’s shop, he decided to join the Revolutionary Guard at age 18 and fought in the Iran-Iraq war. In his autobiography, he wrote that he essentially grew up during the brutal eight-year conflict that left hundreds of thousands dead, and he quickly rose through the ranks to become a commander. His brother, Hassan, was killed in the war. After the war, Iran’s supreme leader at the time, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, appointed Ghalibaf, who is a brigadier general, to be the head of the Revolutionary Guard’s air force. In 1997, Ghalibaf traveled to France to get a pilot’s certification to fly Airbus planes, and he has flown planes for Iran’s national carrier, Iran Air, according to his autobiography. Ghalibaf also was the country’s chief of police and has overseen crackdowns on protests and internal dissent. During his 12-year tenure as mayor of Tehran, Ghalibaf was accused of corruption, which he denied. He also ran for president four times. In 2005, Ghalibaf wore a white suit at some …

Who is set to be in charge in Iran now that Khamenei is dead? A powerful hard-line military corps

Who is set to be in charge in Iran now that Khamenei is dead? A powerful hard-line military corps

Published by Sam Flores

The Revolutionary Guard demonstrated its fealty to Khamenei most recently by orchestrating the crackdown in January that left thousands of anti-government protesters dead. Now, after his killing, it has the opportunity to seize even more power in the country, some experts say. The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency put the number of people killed in the protests at more than 7,000 last week, with nearly 12,000 cases “under review.” President Donald Trump told a group of reporters on Tuesday that Iran had killed 35,000 protesters. The Guard was created after the 1979 Iranian Revolution as a parallel force to Iran’s traditional military, which the ruling clergy distrusted and suspected still had loyalties to the ousted shah, or king. Within Iran, the Guard eliminated those perceived as being anti-revolutionary and helped export its ideology across the Middle East. The Guard’s intelligence branch became the most feared repressive arm of the regime and has its own section in the notorious Evin prison in Tehran. Under Khamenei’s watch in the 1990s, it morphed into a political and …

CIA: Khamenei Replacement Will Likely Be More Hardline

CIA: Khamenei Replacement Will Likely Be More Hardline

Published by Jenni Sidey

Authored by Dave DeCamp via AntiWar.com, Before the US and Israel launched a war against Iran on Saturday morning and killed Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the CIA assessed that if the Iranian leader were killed, his rule would likely be replaced by “hardline” figures from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Reuters has reported. The report said that the assessment was produced over the past two weeks as the US was building up its forces in the region and preparing to launch the war. The New York Times reported that the CIA had been tracking Khamenei for months and knew that he would be at his compound in Tehran meeting senior Iranian officials on Saturday morning, where he was hit by a joint US-Israeli strike. Image from Khamenei’s website Since Khamenei’s death, the Iranian government has created a council, headed by Ayatollah Alireza Arafi, to govern the country until Iran’s “Assembly of Experts” chooses a new supreme leader. Killing Khamenei does not appear to have impacted Iran’s military operations as Iranian missiles and drones continue to hit targets across the region, including in Israel …

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s hardline supreme leader, is dead at 86

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s hardline supreme leader, is dead at 86

Published by Sam Flores

  Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on February 28  died age 86 in a major attack on Iran launched by Israel and the United States. The country’s supreme leader from 1989 –2026, Khamenei was a conservative cleric with fervent political beliefs whose tight grip on power led to the consolidation of an authoritarian regime in Iran and direct confrontations with the West and Israel.  Khamenei was born in July 1939 in the northeastern city of Mashad. His family was very religious and hailed from Iran’s Turkish-speaking Azeri minority. As a young man, he began advanced religious studies in the holy city of Qom under the tutelage of Iran’s future theocrat, the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. “In the areas of political and revolutionary ideas and Islamic jurisprudence, I am certainly a disciple of Imam Khomeini,” read a quote from Khamenei on his official website. A studious disciple with a passion for poetry, Khamenei not only followed his mentor’s religious teachings, he also followed Khomeini into politics, joining the Islamic opposition during Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi’s reign. Launched by Khomeini in 1960, the Islamic opposition aimed to overthrow the shah, who ruled as an absolute monarch. Khamenei was arrested and imprisoned multiple times for …

Bruno Retailleau, a hardline conservative ready to run for French president

Bruno Retailleau, a hardline conservative ready to run for French president

Published by Sam Flores

Bruno Retailleau, president of the right-wing Les Républicains party, in the eastern Paris suburb of Bry-sur-Marne, on November 6, 2025. CYRIL BITTON/DIVERGENCE FOR LE MONDE The suspense has all but disappeared. Barring a major surprise, Bruno Retailleau is set to run in the next presidential election. Gone are the days of dodging questions about the 2027 election with the answer: “Hill after hill,” a beloved phrase from Retailleau’s native Vendée, where no peak rises above an altitude of 300 meters. This down-to-earth caution ended up disheartening some of his supporters. “Bruno doesn’t show that he’s hungry” for the presidency, some said. In December 2025, Retailleau pledged to pick up the pace. “I need to do it, in order to be liberated,” he had said at the time, while confiding in a tight-knit group. Is his liberation now imminent? Surrounded by his inner circle, Retailleau, president of the Les Républicains (LR, right) party, thought through his decision over the holidays. “He’s flipped a switch on something in his mind,” a source in his entourage said. The …

No sign of new protests in Iran as a hard-line cleric calls for executions : NPR

No sign of new protests in Iran as a hard-line cleric calls for executions : NPR

Published by Sam Flores

Iranian senior cleric Ahmad Khatami delivers his sermon during Friday prayer ceremony in Tehran, Iran, on Jan. 5, 2018. Ebrahim Noroozi/AP hide caption toggle caption Ebrahim Noroozi/AP DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — As Iran returned to uneasy calm after a wave of protests that drew a bloody crackdown, a senior hard-line cleric called Friday for the death penalty for detained demonstrators and directly threatened U.S. President Trump — evidence of the rage gripping authorities in the Islamic Republic. Trump, though, struck a conciliatory note, thanking Iran’s leaders for not executing hundreds of detained protesters, in a further sign he may be backing away from a military strike. Executions, as well as the killing of peaceful protesters, are two of the red lines laid down by Trump for possible action against Iran. Harsh repression that has left several thousand people dead appears to have succeeded in stifling demonstrations that began Dec. 28 over Iran’s ailing economy and morphed into protests directly challenging the country’s theocracy. There have been no signs of protests for days in Tehran, …

No Sign of New Protests in Iran as a Hard-Line Cleric Calls for Executions and Threatens Trump

No Sign of New Protests in Iran as a Hard-Line Cleric Calls for Executions and Threatens Trump

Published by Sam Flores

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — As Iran returned to uneasy calm after a wave of protests that drew a bloody crackdown, a senior hard-line cleric called Friday for the death penalty for detained demonstrators and directly threatened U.S. President Donald Trump — evidence of the rage gripping authorities in the Islamic Republic. Harsh repression that has left several thousand people dead appears to have succeeded in stifling demonstrations that began Dec. 28 over Iran’s ailing economy and morphed into protests directly challenging the country’s theocracy. There have been no signs of protests for days in Tehran, where shopping and street life have returned to outward normality, though a week-old internet blackout continued. Authorities have not reported any unrest elsewhere in the country. The U.S.-based Human Rights Activists News Agency on Friday put the death toll, at 2,797. The number continues to rise. “Iran canceled the hanging of over 800 people,” Trump told reporters in Washington, adding that “I greatly respect the fact that they canceled.” In a post referring to the canceled hangings on …