Iranian former President Ali Akbar Rafsanjani is best remembered for his Friday prayer sermon on July 17th 2009, which gave the reform movement a “powerful boost”. In his sermon, he criticized the government for losing the trust of many Iranians, and called for the release of the protesters arrested since the election. As the highest-ranking official within the Iranian clerical regime to oppose the election result, his role in the reform movement was unparalleled.
But as I have discussed in a previous blog, excluding the Friday sermon, Rafsanjani does not have the credentials as a reformist. In his presidency, he is accused of executing political dissidents, Communists, Kurds, and Bahais. In his other big sermon at the Tehran University in 1999, he fully supported the government crackdown on students asking for more freedom and praised the state for their use of force. And it looks like that Rafsanjani is now coming back to his roots. Rafsanjani is now urging Iran’s political factions to follow orders from the supreme leader. The BBC has quoted that Iranian official news agency Irna as stating that Rafsanjani has called for action to foster unity:
“[Mr Rafsanjani] referred to the observance of the guidelines set by the supreme leader and confronting lawbreakers as a necessity under the present conditions,” Irna reported after a meeting of Iran’s Expediency Council, the country’s top political arbitration body, which he chairs.
Irna said he also called for “sympathy between officials and the public as a necessity for the country’s passage from the current domestic problems and for confronting the problems created by foreigners”.
He also reportedly reiterated a call to politicians and the media to “avoid stirring schisms… and take steps toward the creation of unity”.
Photo taken from the New York Times.
A few months ago, I wrote about the early stages of the conflict in Ukraine through the lens of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. While it appears likely that the war will carry on into the foreseeable future, enough time has passed for us to make an honest assessment of each side’s relative […]
The Ukrainian Army has made dramatic strides in the last few weeks. Ukraine’s tactical commanders have outfoxed their Russian counterparts, and by issuing a feint towards the south the UA has been able to earn substantial gains in the north of their country. The impact of these efforts have been compounded by the steady stream […]
In mid-May the Irish political party, Sinn Féin, won the plurality of seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly. Many American readers might not fully understand the significance of Sinn Féin’s political victory- but rest assured that subjects of the United Kingdom and a wide range of political movements the world over have heard the message […]
The first wave of the Russian offensive in Ukraine has fallen short of Russian autocrat Vladmir Putin’s ambitions. Most analysts deduced that Putin had hoped to achieve a decapitation strike of the Ukrainian government- taking Kiev and replacing Ukrainian President Vladimir Zolinski with a pro-Kremlin voice. Kiev has been threatened repeatedly through the course of […]
On the weekend of March 26th, the notorious MS-13 gang went on a massive killing spree in El Salvador which left more than 70 people dead by Sunday. Even for a country where powerful gangs hold massive sway, this recent tragedy stands out considering that it was the bloodiest day on record since the civil […]
