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Iran: Khamenei offers full support for Ahmadinejad, Mutes rival factions

ImageRafsanjani expresses alarm at widespread purge in the regime’s ranks

Khamenei, the clerical regime’s leader, at a gathering of Friday prayer leaders from across the country on Monday, expressed his full support for the regime’s president Ahmadinejad and said: “The government must be supported. In all honesty, the present government, in particular the president, is referred to and judged very unjustly in some comments. The indiscretions that occur cannot at all be the outcome of this government’s work.” Khamenei called the criticism and reviews in some newspapers about the present government unjust and said that any action or words that inflame the antagonisms of the election period should be seriously avoided.
Khamenei’s intention in calling the gathering of Friday prayer leaders was to inform them about the widespread purge of rival factions in the regime’s rank and file that has begun after the instatement of Ahmadinejad. He also set the stage for even further purges.
Rafsanjani addressed the gathering the following day to complain and said: “Unfortunately, national unity and cohesion is under threat and has been damaged severely at present… A number of people have become aggressive today and have begun to destroy past achievements, get even, and engage in collective ostracizing and firing of willing and capable individuals. This situation is eating away at the state and country… We must not waste our resources on purging a few or ostracizing a group.” Rafsanjani whose own family has accumulated enormous wealth from the plunder of the Iranian nation’s resources, said: “Fighting economic corruption is fine. But people’s reputation should not be destroyed in this way and misused for some other purposes.”
In an effort to avoid the further curtailment of his authority, Rafsanjani expressed support for Ahmadinejad and emphasized: “Our work in the Expediency Council is not to interfere in the executive or to hassle the executive’s members. Rather our work is to supervise.”
Mullah Hassan Rohani, former secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of the regime, who is currently under attack for his role in the nuclear negotiations of the past two years, defended Rafsanjani and Khatami’s record in the same gathering and said, “In the three months since the new government has started its work, the referral of our nuclear file to the Security Council has been brought up two times, and another time they dragged the issue to the Security Council by taking advantage of words in a speech made by the president.” Rohani pointed to the extensive purge in the regime and said, “Everyone who has accepted the basis of the revolution, constitution and leadership should be given a chance to participate in the management of affairs… so that they can be ready to defend the state when dangers appear.” He warned against the formation of secret underground movements and said, “Unity cannot be achieved by compulsion nor can we be indifferent to it.” Rohani faced strong protests from the Friday prayer leaders and left the meeting without responding to questions that were posed as the meeting was disrupted.
Khamenei who had purged the uppermost echelons of the regime by installing Ahmadinejad in the presidency, has now begun a widespread purge of rival factions in the rank and file of the regime. Khamenei’s hopeless attempt at cohesion of this medieval regime, the rise in suppression, the increased export of fundamentalism and terrorism, and the stepping up of nuclear weapons development, cannot save his regime from its certain demise. The crisis-ridden clerical regime, opposed by 95% of the Iranian people who favor change, will not achieve cohesion or stability with these ploys, and will never be able to prevent its inevitable downfall.    
Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
November 16, 2005