Iran's election dispute divides religious rulers

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran's election dispute has moved beyond the drama of mass street protests to a new phase: a fight for power within the ruling religious establishment itself.

The conflict escalated as the country's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, backed by hard-line clerics and the Revolutionary Guard, issued a warning to the opposition in general and powerful cleric Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani in particular.

"The elite should be watchful, since they have been faced with a big test. Failing the test will cause their collapse," Khamenei said Monday in a speech marking a religious holiday. "Anybody who drives the society toward insecurity and disorder is a hated person in the view of the Iranian nation, whoever he is."

The opposition was emboldened when Rafsanjani stepped into the fray with a Friday prayer sermon that sharply criticized the leadership's handling of the postelection crisis. He has re-ignited the opposition, emerging as its leading patron.

"You are facing something new: an awakened nation, a nation that has been born again and is here to defend its achievements," opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi said Monday in comments that appeared pointed directly at Khamenei, in a tone rarely used toward the supreme leader.

Mousavi, whose loss in recent presidential elections triggered mass protests, also derided the claim by Khamenei and hard-line clerics that the protest movement was a tool of foreign enemies. "Who believes that (protesters) would conspire with foreigners and sell the interests of their own country?" he said. "Isn't this an insult to our nation?"

A heavy security crackdown broke the demonstrations that followed the disputed June 12 presidential election, which had President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad trouncing Mousavi. But the opposition has brought thousands into the streets twice in the past two weeks.

On Sunday, a leading pro-reform figure, former President Mohammad Khatami, called for a referendum on the legitimacy of Ahmadinejad's government. That could emerge as a concrete demand for the opposition to rally around. Another demand they will likely focus on is the release of the more than 500 protesters and prominent reform politicians still in prison from the crackdown.

Khamenei has supported Ahmadinejad with unprecedented openness, dismissing opposition claims he won by fraud. Abandoning the president now to a referendum would be a blow to Khamenei's status.