Rafsanjani's hairy back.

Elaine Sciolino raises the issue Rafsanjani's Khamanei-Ahmadinejad like past in discussing the meaning and significance of his current stance in today's NYTimes.

While Rafsanjani's sermon at Friday prayers evoked the just governing style of the Prophet Muhammad, and Ayatollah Khomenei's focus on the people's will, though that was more of a saying than a reality under his rule, Sciolino argues that "Still, it would be wrong to say that Mr. Rafsanjani has suddenly become a proponent of justice, human rights and freedom." He has a checkered past; for example, the speech he gave after the 1999 student protests as well as his violent stance against the protestors resemble Khamenei's speech and the reaction of the Basij against demonstrations today.

His past considered, what are Rafsanjani's purpose and goals today?

Here are some of the other points about Rafsanjani's hairy back:

"In the summer of 1999, after all, when the government crushed student demonstrations at Tehran University, he delivered a harsh sermon in the same place as he did on Friday. Back then, he blamed “enemies of the revolution” and “sources outside the country” for the unrest. He praised the use of force by the state."

During much of his earlier eight-year presidency, many Iranians were executed, including political dissidents, drug offenders, Communists, Kurds, Bahais, even clerics.

Politically, Mr. Rafsanjani was humiliated twice: in 2000 when he ran for Parliament and came in 30th and last place in Tehran (amid charges of ballot fraud in his favor), and again in 2005, when he performed dismally in his bid to regain the presidency.

But unlike many political figures, and certainly unlike most clerics, Mr. Rafsanjani is the consummate politician. He refuses to abandon the political battlefield in a country in which silence in the face of defeat is the norm.

He also knows how to shift gears. A campaign photograph in the 2000 campaign showed him without his turban. He must have thought that a clerical uniform had become a liability."