Iran Ousts Top Security Official Tainted by Spy Scandal

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

51% :Iran on Monday removed its top national security official, one of the most powerful men in the country, after he came under scrutiny over his close ties with a high-ranking British spy.
45% : "There was pressure building on Mr. Khamenei from the hard-line faction and public opinion to remove Mr. Shamkhani," Gheis Ghoreishi, a political analyst close to the government, said in a telephone interview from Iran.
45% : "There was a give-and-take deal between the government of President Raisi and the supreme leader to allow Mr. Shamkhani to redeem his public standing after the Akbari scandal with the Saudi deal," one political analyst, Sasan Karimi, said in an interview from Tehran.
43% : In 2019, as suspicions about Mr. Akbari arose, Mr. Shamkhani lured him back to Iran from Britain, where he had moved, leading to his arrest and execution in January.
32% : He was accused of corruption amid allegations that his family raked in millions of dollars through an oil shipping business helping Iran evade sanctions.
21% : Last June, Iran also removed the head of the Guards intelligence unit, Hossein Taeb, after a series of covert attacks and assassinations in Iran linked to Israel suggested that Iranian intelligence circles had been compromised.

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