With Iran’s hardliners apparently in denial over last Friday’s ‘Green Wave’ revival of anti-regime protests, check out this profile of Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri:
Some analysts see Grand Ayatollah Montazeri as the most influential opposition figure after Mir Hossein Mousavi, the man millions of Iranians believe was the true winner of June’s elections. “Montazeri is far more influential in my view than [Mohammad] Khatami and [Medhi] Karrubi,” said an Iran scholar and former seminary student in Iran’s holy city of Qom, referring to the opposition’s other main figureheads. “He [Montazeri] has no official position yet his power and moral authority hasn’t declined,” added the scholar, who declined to be named. “At the same time, he’s not too radical. He wants reform, not a new revolution.”
Other analysts have noted that the ongoing protests represent the first occasion in the history of the Islamic Republic in which demonstrators have explicitly rejected religious leadership and, far from seeking to reform the Islamic Republic, are demanding radical constitutional reform and an end to clerical rule.
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