Adrian Hamilton

The Independent’s comment editor, Adrian Hamilton writes a weekly column largely on international affairs with particular focus on the Middle East, Iran and foreign policy issues. Before joining the paper he was deputy editor of the Observer newspaper.

Adrian Hamilton: Power in Iran - a labyrinthine system

The regime in Iran is now desperately – and so far uncertainly – playing for time while it tries to work out just what is happening in the country and the forces that are now engulfing it. The Council of Guardians has agreed to a recount of the disputed results. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was seen off for the day to a summit in Russia. Talks have been opened up with the main opposition leaders. The foreign press has been effectively confined to barracks. The authorities have warned against demonstrations but appear to have held back from trying to suppress them by force.

Recently by Adrian Hamilton

Adrian Hamilton: This exercise won't even ask the hard questions

Tuesday, 16 June 2009

The invasion of Iraq, as Tony Blair now accepts in private, is the great cloud that lours over his premiership and the New Labour Government, despite every effort to push it into the margins of history. It was the most divisive issue of a generation, and perhaps more, which could find no resolution either in the regimented debates of Parliament or two successive inquiries, by Lord Hutton into the death of Dr David Kelly and by Lord Butler into the use of intelligence.