Word: ayatullah
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...Makhmalbaf, the exiled revolutionary filmmaker turned dissident who claims to speak on behalf of the Green Movement, during a Washington visit last week. He told U.S. officials and Iran experts Thursday that the military action would only strengthen the hard-line regime of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Supreme Leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenei. "Dialogue is definitely better than war," said Makhmalbaf. (See the top 10 players in Iran's power struggle...
...Soltan, the student shot dead during the June uprising who became an opposition symbol. (Obama mentioned her death, but not by name, the day he won the Nobel Peace Prize.) Washington also needs to recognize and respond to opposition statements, like the apology from Iran's leading dissident cleric, Ayatullah Ali Montazeri, for the 1979 U.S. embassy takeover. Montazeri was once heir-apparent to the revolution's founder, Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini, and his gesture on the 30th anniversary of the seizure was a risky step that passed largely ignored by Washington...
...Mehdi Karroubi, one of the losing presidential candidates. Karroubi has been collecting evidence of abuse and murder by government security services in the aftermath of the election. The fact that the government could turn against someone with such impeccable revolutionary credentials (Karroubi was a confidant of the late Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini and a former speaker of parliament) is a sign of just how tightly the new circle of power is drawn. If anyone needed a reminder of how little room is left for legal political opposition, last week Khamenei called it a crime to question the results of the election...
...welcome the deal, but then it quicly retreated last week amid a chorus of criticism inside Iran. Hard-liners reacted with knee-jerk suspicion that the U.S. was secretly trying to steal Iran's uranium, and moderates smelled an opportunity to attack the government. Finally, on Tuesday, Supreme Leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenei blamed U.S. arrogance for the failure of the talks and made comments that seemed to dash any hopes of a deal with the U.S. "The Islamic Republic of Iran decided from the beginning not to prejudge and instead to consider the slogan of 'change,' " he said, apparently referring...
...would be the use in that?" Instead, he said his staff would take their students to a private garden as a way to build camaraderie and spirit, a kind of Islamic field trip to celebrate the beginning of the academic year. (See a pictorial account of the legacy of Ayatullah Khomeini...