Iran taps ‘corrupt commander’ Mohammad Ghalibaf to make deal
Mohammad Ghalibaf, an enforcer close to the new supreme leader, may be the only figure who could sell a climb down to Tehran’s hardliners.
Akhtar Makoii
Updated
London | The man whom Iran has entrusted to lead negotiations to end the war with the US has never shied away from doing the regime’s dirty work.
In 1999, as student protests broke out in Tehran against media censorship, Mohammad Ghalibaf got onto the back of a motorcycle, grabbed a club, and beat the demonstrators himself. Maintaining order required someone willing to “be on the street with a stick in hand, even if that someone is a general”, he later boasted.