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In this mailing:
* Con Coughlin: Iran's "Moderate" President Is a Just Another Hardliner-in-Disguise to Glide in Its Nuclear Weapons Programme
* Amir Taheri: Britain and France: A Tale of Two Elections


** Iran's "Moderate" President Is a Just Another Hardliner-in-Disguise to Glide in Its Nuclear Weapons Programme ([link removed])
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by Con Coughlin • July 14, 2024 at 5:00 am
* [Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN-sponsored body that is responsible for monitoring the mullahs' nuclear programme] also warned that it could take Iran just a month or so for the Iranians to assemble a nuclear warhead, given the progress they have made in recent months in their enrichment programme.
* The acknowledgement by an internationally respected body such as the IAEA that Iran has now acquired sufficient material to build several nuclear warheads, which could be assembled within the space of a month, is a devastating indictment of the Biden administration's policy of appeasement towards Iran since US President Joe Biden took office.
* Biden's refusal to hold Iran accountable for its actions has resulted in the Iranian regime receiving billions of dollars in added revenue because of Washington's decision not to enforce oil sanctions against Iran. As a result, the extra funds received by Iran have been used to fund ([link removed]) the regime's terrorist networks across the globe, including Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
* As a senior official with Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps admitted to The Telegraph, in the wake of the election, that Pezeshkian had only been allowed to compete in the election to "legitimise the vote".
* It is vital, therefore, that the Biden administration fully understands the cynicism shown by Iran's hardliners in seeking to legitimise their brutal regime before making any further overtures to the country's so-called moderate president.
* In the uncompromising world of Iran's autocratic Islamic republic, there is no such thing as a moderate Iranian president -- a fact that Iran's long-suffering people know only too well.

Before the Biden administration gets too carried away celebrating the election of Iran's so-called moderate president, it should understand that Masoud Pezeshkian's victory is nothing more than a ploy to distract world attention away from Iran's nuclear weapons programme. Pictured: Pezeshkian (front left) visits the shrine of the Islamic Republic's founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini on July 6, 2024 in Tehran. (Photo by Majid Saeedi/Getty Images)

Before the Biden administration gets too carried away celebrating the election of Iran's so-called moderate president, it should understand that Masoud Pezeshkian's victory is nothing more than a ploy to distract world attention away from Iran's nuclear weapons programme.

While Iranian voters have understandably been focused on electing a new president to replace hardliner Ebrahim Raisi, who was killed in a mysterious helicopter crash in May, the regime has been intensifying its efforts to acquire nuclear weapons.

Reports that Iran has now acquired sufficient quantities of enriched uranium to build nuclear warheads have been confirmed by Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN-sponsored body that is responsible for monitoring the mullahs' nuclear programme.

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** Britain and France: A Tale of Two Elections ([link removed])
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by Amir Taheri • July 14, 2024 at 4:00 am
* In other words, both in Britain and France, you may get around or even less than 30 percent of the votes and yet secure a chance to form the government.
* To start with, democracy is the government of the people, by the people and for the people, not just the rule of a majority in one or more elections.
* It is a social contract about how to exercise the political power needed to govern a nation, resolve its inevitable contradictions, provide public services and ensure security from domestic criminals and foreign foes.
* In a democracy, politics is like a chaotic, noisy and often dirty kitchen that, nevertheless, produces the dishes that, if not always mouth-watering, keep society in good health.

(Image source: iStock/Getty Images)

In his A Tale of Two Cities, English novelist Charles Dickens uses the French Revolution as a background for the claim, never openly stated, for the superiority of the British political system. Here are two European nations, tracing their ancestry to ancient Greece and Rome and cradled in Christian culture, yet, when it comes to politics, acting at opposite ends of the spectrum.

The lesson the reader is supposed to learn from Dickens' novel is that common historical background and religious traditions are no guarantee for similarity of political culture.

Fast-forward to this month, as Britain and France held general elections.

The two neighbors, allies for more than a century, are members of NATO since 1949 and had been members of the European Union for decades before the UK gambled its future on Brexit.

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