In another escalation of the fight within Iran’s regime, former President Hashemi Rafsanjani has implicitly criticized the Supreme Leader.

Rafsanjani used his website on Tuesday to respond to an attack by the Supreme Leader’s brother Mohammad, which accused the former President of being an American agent as the US tried in the 1980s. to assassinate Ayatollah Khomeini and put Rafsanjani in power.

See Iran Daily, Dec 13: Hardliners Say Ex-President Rafsanjani Involved in “Sedition”

Rafsanjani said Mohammad Khamenei’s grudge is so great that the cleric is ready to question Imam Khomeini’s leadership and the Islamic Revolution as he “narrates fictions”.

Then Rafsanjani implicitly chided the Supreme Leader, “It is strange that why those who are aware of the decision making process during the revolution, stay silent towards and only watch the falsifications by Sayed Mohammad Khamenei.”

Other clerics offered support. Hojatoleslam Tabatabaei said Mohammad Khamenei’s allegations — “all lies” — were not only an insult to Rafsanjani but also to Khomeini: “Not even SAVAK insulted the Imam like he [Mohammad Khamenei] did.”

An EA correspondent in Iran says the main reason behind the insults is the battle over the chairmanship of Assembly of Experts. Rafsanjani headed the body from 2007 to 2011 but, under pressure from hardliners after he supported the right to protest following the disputed 2009 election, he was replaced by Ayatollah Mahdavi Kani.

Mahdavi Kani died in October after a heart attack and a four-month coma. His replacement is likely to be elected by the 86-member body in March.

The EA correspondent explains:

If Rafsanjani becomes the head of Assembly of Experts, which is very likely, surely the hardliners in Sepah [the Revolutionary Guards], Parliament and the clergy will be sent outside the political arena.

Then the house arrests [of opposition leaders Mir Hossein Mousavi, Mehdi Karroubi, and Zahra Rahnavard, detained since February 2011] and nuclear issue will be resolved. The next elections of Parliament in 2016 will be in the hands of the moderates, both from the reformist and principlist groups.

The Supreme Leader will be forced to change his views in that changed political environment.

Rafsanjani also took his attack into another arena, pressing the claim that of “seriously disappointing” corruption during the Ahmadinejad administration from 2005 to 2013.

Rafsanjani’s line echoes that of President Rouhani, who not only cited the past corruption but implicitly challenged the Revolutionary Guards for their expanding influence in Iran’s economic institutions.

The Supreme Leader, speaking at the same corruption conference as Rouhani last week, warned that criticism of the Ahmadinejad administration should not take on “an exaggerated and destructive dimension”.

Khamenei’s statement was followed by attacks on the Government, including a Tehran Friday Prayer by Ayatollah Ahmad Khatami, “Corruption will not be eradicated by just holding conferences.”

See Iran Daily, Dec 14: Rouhani Attacked Over “Corruption” & Revolutionary Guards