Iran President Fails to Appease Lawmakers in Economic Crisis:
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has failed to convince parliament that his plans will pull the country out of an economic nosedive worsened by America's withdrawal from the nuclear deal.
https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2018-08-28/iran-president-defends-administration-amid-economic-woes
Rouhani also made a cryptic remark that Iran has a "third way" to deal with the ongoing crisis other than simply abandoning or staying in the nuclear deal. He did not elaborate, but said he mentioned the idea to French President Emmanuel Macron on Monday.
In a speech Monday, Macron mentioned that he had spoken to Rouhani and said France, in coordination with Britain, Germany and the EU, will keep working on "preserving" the deal.
Rouhani's growing political weakness has been a boon to hard-liners within Iran's Shiite theocracy. Those pressures have only been growing.
A demonstration last week saw hard-line clerics waving a placard calling Rouhani's negotiations with the West his "swimming pool." That's a reference to long-swirling rumors surrounding the death of former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a political godfather to Rouhani whose body was found in a swimming pool.
"If I am threatened with assassination, I'm OK with it. I don't think of it as a big deal," Rouhani said. "We all know that it is our dream to be killed in the path of God."