Word: rafsanjani
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Last week Iran's Parliament Speaker Hashemi Rafsanjani seemingly acknowledged the importance of the Syrian pressure. In an interview on NBC's Today, Rafsanjani suggested an exchange of foreign hostages held in Lebanon for Shi'ite Muslims imprisoned in Kuwait and Israel. Such deals have previously been turned down by Kuwait, Israel and, indeed, the U.S. But the Rafsanjani offer clearly implied a desire among some factions in Iran to improve Tehran's ties with the outside world and soothe Syrian irritation over the hostage taking in Lebanon...
...phalanxes of men bearing placards that said DOWN WITH U.S.: the angry scene had been played out before. This time, however, the crowd seemed reinvigorated, its fury fresh and lethal. "Death to America!" they chanted in the near 100 degrees heat. Their rage rose higher still as Hashemi Rafsanjani, the speaker of Iran's parliament, called upon Allah to "avenge the blood" of nearly 300 Iranian pilgrims who had been killed a week earlier in Mecca, Islam's holiest city. Rafsanjani also uttered a demand that sent a tremor through the Arab world and beyond: the rulers of Saudi Arabia...
...political divisions. Iranian troops are split among the regular military, the fanatical Revolutionary Guards and the often ragtag volunteer corps known as the basij. During Iran's moderate phase in the mid-1980s, Tehran reduced the death toll by relying on trained professional soldiers for most of the fighting. Rafsanjani announced in 1985 that Iran intended "to achieve victory with as few casualties as possible." But last year champions of the zealous Guards gained a stronger voice in ruling circles. The Guards have scant concern for casualties and favor launching human waves against enemy positions. In a unanimous vote last...
...Paris and London have all been shattered in the past year. So too have been the painstaking efforts of some Iranian leaders to improve ties with Saudi Arabia. Whether Iran can leave such traits behind will ultimately rest with Khomeini's successors. All the indications are that the pragmatic Rafsanjani, 53, is locked in a fierce power struggle with the hard-liner Montazeri. Without a clear winner, the two men could wind up sharing authority in an arrangement that would make Montazeri the religious leader and Rafsanjani the political head of state. Most experts predict that a turbulent transition will...
...left on the sidelines, Khomeini brought Ahmed into government affairs late last year to oversee Tehran's two major newspapers and supervise state TV and radio stations and the national IRNA news agency. Iranian experts now consider Ahmed a full-fledged member of Khomeini's inner circle, along with Rafsanjani and Montazeri...