WHILE THE memories of these days endure, the arduous conditions under which Iran’s oppositionists are now struggling give everyone good reason to forget these past scuffles. Rafsanjani seemed to do so in his extraordinary July 17 sermon when he invoked Khomeini’s words that “without the people, there would be no Islamic system.” Demanding a return to the system of regime-managed consensus that was at the heart of the Islamic Republic, Rafsanjani called for the release of all political prisoners and for freedom of the press “within the limits of the law.”
While hardly revolutionary, the terms and language that Rafsanjani used have clearly signaled that Iran’s most famous pragmatist and swing-voter has cast his lot with the opposition. Although his words provoked a stinging rebuke from the Supreme Leader, other hardliners carefully amplified some of Rafsanjani’s proposals—suggesting that in the wake of June 12, long-existing cracks within the ranks of the clerical right may now be multiplying and expanding.
The opposition’s chief challenge is to reach out to these disaffected hardliners without alienating the Islamic leftists and the disillusioned populace that is still ready to take to the streets. While this is hardly a new dilemma for Iran’s veteran reformists, the anger towards the regime—and towards the Supreme Leader in particular—runs so deep that even conservative Iranians who once believed in Khamanei are now wondering wh… >>>
