Iran: Words to heed | Editorial: Via The Guardian(UK).

Friday prayers at Tehran University normally serve as a showcase for the regime. It was from this pulpit that Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, told the hundreds of thousands protesting about the stolen election a month ago to stay off the streets. Mass protest and more bloodshed ensued. Yesterday's prayers were anything but a platform for either the supreme leader or his doomed president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who stayed well away.

One of the ayatollah's bitterest rivals, the influential cleric and former president Hashemi Rafsanjani, was in the pulpit. Mir Hossein Mousavi, the candidate who claimed to have beaten Mr Ahmadinejad, was in the front row. Mehdi Karroubi, the reformist cleric, was also there. Mr Rafsanjani's words may not have been carried live on state TV, but they got out soon enough on radio, the blogosphere and Twitter in Persian and English. Together, the three men now form a public and formidable opposition bloc.
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Top cleric may be playing role in Iran unrest: Via AP at Yahoo! News.

CAIRO – One of Iran's most powerful men may be playing a key role behind closed doors in the country's escalating postelection crisis.

Former president and influential cleric Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani has made no public comment since Iran erupted into confrontation between backers of hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and reformists who claim he stole re-election through fraud.

But Iranian TV has shown pictures of Rafsanjani's daughter, Faezeh Hashemi, speaking to hundreds of opposition supporters. And Rafsanjani, who has made no secret of his distaste for Ahmadinejad, was conspicuously absent from an address by the country's supreme leader calling for national unity and siding with the president.
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