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Hard-Liners in Iran See No Drawback to Bellicose Strategy

(New York Times) David D. Kirkpatrick - Iranian scholars said Tehran has concluded that its recent aggressions have effectively strengthened its leverage with the West. Ali Ansari, a professor of Iranian history at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, said that for Iranian hard-liners, "their policy of 'maximum resistance' is working." Sanam Vakil, a scholar of Iran and the Persian Gulf at Chatham House policy institute in London, said the Iranians appear to have concluded from recent American actions that confrontation cannot lose, because even a potential American military action would almost certainly be a limited strike designed to avoid a prolonged ground war. Domestically and in the region, surviving such a strike could strengthen the current Iranian government by rallying public opinion. "They are challenging American supremacy and forcing the international community to come to terms with a new relationship with the Islamic Republic," she said.
2019-09-18 00:00:00
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