Who is Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf? Iran’s wartime apparatchik

“Listen up… You come for our home, you are going to meet the whole family, locked, loaded and standing tall. Bring it on,” Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, Speaker of Iran’s Parliament, Majles, wrote in a long social media post on April 2, amid speculations that the U.S. would launch a ground offensive in Iran. “Let me tell you something straight from the gut. Iranians don’t just talk about defending their country, we bleed for it. We have done it before and we are ready to do it again,” he added. Mr. Ghalibaf’s comments were the strongest warning against any U.S. plan to launch a ground attack.

Already the face of Iran’s resistance, Mr. Ghalibaf, 64, wrote back-to-back social media posts, often rebutting U.S. President Donald Trump’s claims that Iran had been defeated, and reminding the U.S. and the wider world of the real economic costs of the war. Late last month, Mr. Trump threatened to destroy Iran’s power plants and other civilian infrastructure if Tehran did not reopen the Strait of Hormuz and agree to a deal. Iran did not flinch.