Familiar face emerges in Iran vote

For his Iranian audience, there are frequent, vitriolic public harangues of US policy. On Sunday, Iran's official news agency reported on a speech in which Rafsanjani accused the US of waging war against Islam, and called on Muslim nations to confront America. Earlier this month, he marked the death of Pope John Paul II, saying the "world's Christians should shout in protest against the US" and tell "White House leaders that their conduct has defamed Christ."

But the message that Rafsanjani can deliver better US-Iran relations has been quietly passed from Iranian officials to Washington, setting up Rafsanjani as the one who can be trusted to negotiate on behalf of the regime, according to well-placed sources in Tehran. And in an interview with USA Today (a political risk for someone of less stature), Rafsanjani said: "I'm not the only one [who can solve the problem with the US], but I am one of them."

According to one European diplomat in Tehran, "Rafsanjani's asset is that he is a giant in a field of midgets." He notes that even the Revolutionary Guard Corps has put out a circular forbidding criticism of the former president.

"The sad thing is that all [candidates] are the generation of the revolution," the diplomat says. "There has been no evolution of people, no new names. When they die, in 10 years, there will be real change here. Until then, they will block progress."

Analysts say that Rafsanjani's past receptivity to social openness make him a target. Rafsanjani may also be seen as a threat to the supreme spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. USA Today quoted Rafsanjani's son saying that, if elected, his father would change the constitution to make that post a ceremonial one, like "the king of England" - a virtual heresy in the Islamic Republic.

"Radicals will be against every government that could take power, but if it is Rafsanjani, it will be worse than for Khatami - they hate him 1,000 times more," says Saeed Laylaz, a political analyst in Tehran.

Hard-liners blame Rafsanjani's economic reforms while president, from 1989 to 1997, for creating the seeds of civil society that blossomed into the reform movement. They shouted him down during Friday prayers in 1998, forcing him to change topics when he tried to support a popular Tehran mayor under fire from hard-liners.

"The only person who matters is the supreme leader, but the only person who can influence the supreme leader is Rafsanjani," says the European diplomat. "In the end it will boil down to a historic fight for power, for the concept of the supreme leader - that's the reason all the clerics hate [Rafsanjani]."

That is also a reason why he may appeal to reformists, if he decides to run. "Some 95 percent of the power in Iran is not elected," says Mohsen Kadivar, an opposition Islamic scholar whose views have landed him in prison. "The majority of the population will vote, if they think they can choose someone who can limit the power of the supreme leader."

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