Gates: Sanctions Have “Bitten Much Harder” than Iran Expected

David Streeter — November 17, 2010 – 11:27 am | Foreign Policy | Iran | Obama Comments (0) Add a comment

According to The Washington Post (WaPost), Defense Secretary Robert Gates said that the U.S.-led sanctions effort against Iran is causing significant turmoil among Iran’s leaders. WaPost reported that Gates said:

[N]ew sanctions led by the Obama administration are causing divisions within the Iranian leadership.

Sanctions ‘have really bitten much harder than [Iranian leaders] anticipated,’ Gates told the Wall Street Journal CEO Council in Washington, citing indications that President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is in trouble with the country’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

‘We even have some evidence that Khamenei now is beginning to wonder if Ahmadinejad is lying to him about the impact of the sanctions on the economy and whether he’s getting the straight scoop in terms of how much trouble the economy really is in,’ Gates said.

 

Comments

There are no comments for this entry