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| Axis of Evil |
| Meshkini accuses Taheri of ''fomenting division'' |
| 2002-07-21 |
| A leading conservative cleric launched a public attack on a reformist colleague's criticism of the Islamic state Sunday, despite appeals for calm from supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Ayatollah Ali Meshkini, prayer leader of the holy city of Qom, accused his former opposite number in the central city of Isfahan, Ayatollah Jalaleddin Taheri, of seeking to "foment division between the people and the Islamic system" with his shock resignation earlier this month. Meshkini's comments, published in the daily Iran, came despite repeated appeals from supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for rival conservatives and reformers to tone down their rhetoric in the face of unprecedented factional tensions within the regime. Ummm... I think the Revolutionary Guards just went over the top in that department. Is the civil war under way yet? |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |
| #2 Interesting developments. I was thinking of Khamenei filling a Karensky type position, between the overthrow and the "real" revolution. If you're right, he might be Danton, with Robespierre and his works still to come. That's a scareful thought. |
| Posted by: Fred 2002-07-22 06:10:35 |
| #1 Watch that Meshkini. I believe he was one of the chief instigators and original proposers of the anti-American protest sham. In general, the clerics of Qom are behaving like they feel the need for another revolution. As crazy as that sounds, it makes perfect sense, in the political atmosphere over there. Khamenei and President Khatami have some sort of a compromise going, but each is losing their hold over their respective constituencies. Just as the most recent elections saw reform party representatives replaced with more radical members of their movements, the more reactionary clerics are growing increasingly dissatisfied with Khamenei's "leniency" toward the reformers. So we see a standard, done-a-million-times scenario building, in which the next revolution is not kicked off by the revolutionaries, but by the more radically hard-nosed members of the ruling class doing something dunderheaded like, oh, I don't know, initiating a movement to deny reform party candidates the right to run in the next election? (Yep, that's being initiated by...guess who? The "Senior Cleric Association" of Qom.) |
| Posted by: Mac 2002-07-21 22:33:20 |