Word: rafsanjani
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...President's future was already shaky after unprecedented attacks from the reformist camp, led by former Presidents Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammed Khatami, in the aftermath of the disputed June 12 presidential election. Then, last week, he angered his conservative base by appointing a deputy and in-law, Esfandir Rahim Mashaei, who was once quoted as sounding pro-Israel, as his Vice President. After Supreme Leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenei issued a public letter criticizing the choice, Ahmadinejad at first was defiant and then, after Mashaei withdrew, turned around and nominated him as his chief of staff...
Former Prime Minister Mir-Hossein Mousavi is the public face of the opposition, but there are many others who are just as important, from former Presidents Mohammed Khatami and Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani to many grand ayatullahs in Qom, Iran's Vatican. Mousavi was chosen as spokesman for the opposition because of his impeccable revolutionary credentials. Even at the revolution's most militant violent and radical peak, Mousavi stood by Khomeini, never questioning his decisions. It was an office under Mousavi that coordinated a series of attacks against the U.S. in Lebanon, including an attack on the U.S. embassy...
...camaraderie of resistance was visible at the July 17 Friday prayer sermon given by former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani at Tehran University. Nonreligious Iranians turned up for political reasons. The devout showed them how to carry out the rituals, with strangers handing out newspapers as substitute prayer mats for overflow crowds. Men and women prayed together, a regime taboo. When Rafsanjani referred to detainees, the crowd interrupted by roaring, "Political prisoners must be freed!" Calling for support of Iran's Supreme Leader, who backed the crackdown, another prayer official intoned, "We are all your soldiers, Khamenei! We await your...
...current uprising is nowhere near as widespread as that of 1979. Yet the activism is creating a new political space in Iran. The public is defining its own agenda, with Rafsanjani, Mousavi and other opposition figures responding to sentiment on the street rather than directing it. After meeting on July 20 with the families of people detained following the election, Mousavi warned the power structure, "You are facing something new: an awakened nation, a nation that has been born again and is here to defend its achievements...
...acquires one in the next few years. Only Benjamin Netanyahu and assorted American neoconservatives believe - or pretend to believe - that Iran might actually use it, given Israel's overpowering ability to strike back. Most observers think that the Iranians would hold their weapon as a deterrent - even Rafsanjani, in his "Islamic bomb" speech, posited that the weapon would create a regional "stalemate." To be sure, an Iranian bomb would not be a good thing. It might launch a Middle Eastern arms race among Iran's Sunni rivals in Saudi Arabia and Egypt. But it would not be cataclysmic, either - unless...