Word: khatami
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...those who believe in the articles of the constitution want to respect its boundaries," he declared in a barely veiled reference to the opposition. None of the leaders of the reformist opposition - Ahmadinejad's two rivals in the polls, Mir-Hossein Mousavi and Mehdi Karroubi, and former President Mohammed Khatami - have called for the abolition of the republic. They have in fact framed their protests as part of the legacy of the Islamic revolution's founding father, the late Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini...
...President Akbar Hashemei Rafsanjani - a wily power broker who's managed to hold the ever narrowing middle ground between the two camps - might mediate between the opposition and Khamenei. At least one opposition leader, former presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi, has openly mooted the possibility, though another, former president Mohammad Khatami, publicly denied having sent a letter to that effect to the Supreme Leader. But all three of the highest-profile opposition leaders - Karroubi, Khatami and Mir-Hossein Mousavi, the candidate who opposition supporters believe actually won the disputed election - have publicly recognized Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as President while reiterating their belief...
...obvious attractions. Resilient as the protesters may be, it's not clear that the Green Movement can continue indefinitely in the face of the state's overwhelmingly superior force - nor is there any visible prospect of the regime's losing control of the streets. Iconic leaders such as Karroubi, Khatami and Mousavi are perhaps less dangerous to the government free than they would be if imprisoned, because their movement's activities are so curtailed and many of their aides and allies are in jail. Moreover, the longer the protests have continued in the face of harsh repression, the more demonstrations...
...Hossein Mousavi makes no reference to his martyred nephew, nor does he offer strategies or issue any call to specific action. Instead, he accepts explicitly what many on the ground have been saying for months. "For the Ashura ceremony, despite numerous calls to do so, neither Mehdi Karroubi, Mohammad Khatami [the two other main leaders of the opposition] nor I or my associates issued statements," he wrote. "Once more, the god-seeking people showed themselves to be a broad social and civil network which ... has taken shape spontaneously and does not wait for statements or announcements...
...Some had said that a contingent of Iran's Basij paramilitaries had taken over the mosque on the inside long before Khatami's speech was due to begin. Walking up the hill to the mosque, we had seen the now familiar buses which bring in government militias from other areas...