During an extended edition of CNN’s “Laura Coates Live” that covered the reported assassination of Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh, CNN International Diplomatic Editor Nic Robertson stated that the killing of Haniyeh means that his “moderate voice is off the table” because Haniyeh “was seen as a more moderate within Hamas.”
Robertson said, “This is going to be an extreme test of the new President of Iran, Masoud Pezeshkian. This is a man who’s quite literally just taken up his job, who has quite literally just seen one of his principal regional interlocutors who came to congratulate him and witness him taking on that new role, being assassinated and killed. He is seen as a moderate. That’s a relative term. And, of course, he’s constrained by other forces in Iran like the IRGC, the supreme leader. All of these individuals and bodies will have an impact on the decisions that he makes. But will he now be seen as somebody who acts with moderation or will he find himself taking a very, very tough line? And I think, as well, if you look at the implications of Ismail Haniyeh’s assassination, he was seen as a more moderate within Hamas. That moderate voice is off the table. Does it make a difference? He will be replaced. Will he be replaced by somebody more hardline? We don’t know.”
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