Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, who has threatened US, being weighed up as potential interlocutor to bring war to an end
Middle East crisis – live updates
Just as in 1967 when a rank outsider won the Grand National due to a massive pile-up of other horses at one of the final fences, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, the speaker of Iran’s parliament and Donald Trump’s putative interlocutor, appears to have come to the front as the field around him rapidly thinned.
In the pantheon of Iran’s leaders, ruthlessly reduced by targeted assassinations, Ghalibaf stands out as a survivor, but if the US president hopes he has finally located the Delsy Rodríguez of Iran – a pragmatic leader from within the regime willing to do business with America – he may need to think again.
Ghalibaf lacks the sophistication of Ali Larijani, the previous secretary of the Supreme National Security Council, who at times fell out with the previous supreme leader, but had a range of international contacts. Ghalibaf’s image is instead that of a strongman – possibly the one characteristic in any human that most appeals to Trump.
