Qatar, February 16: Hillary Clinton, the US Secretary of State, told an audience of university students in Qatar yesterday that she believes Iran is drifting towards becoming a military dictatorship because of the increasing influence of the élite Revolutionary Guard in the country’s leadership and politics.
The remarks seemed aimed in part to set the stage for a new round of international sanctions on Iran in the dispute over its alleged nuclear ambitions. Those measures, if approved, are likely to target the Guard and its web of business activities.
“We see that the government of Iran is being supplanted and that Iran is moving toward a military dictatorship,” Mrs Clinton remarked during a televised debate at a campus of Carnegie Mellon University in Doha, the capital of Qatar.
–Agencies