FORGET THE HIDDEN IMAM, COUNT THE HIDDEN BENEFITS:

Opposition in Iran Showing Signs of Unity (ELI LAKE, December 8, 2005, NY Sun)

In the aftermath of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's ascendancy to the presidency of Iran, the country's opposition is beginning to show signs of unifying as the clerical regime wages a war against internal dissent.

Yesterday, the regime closed all schools in Tehran, citing poor air quality, after word leaked of the first major demonstrations since the summer. Nonetheless, a rally at Tehran University attracted 300 demonstrators amid a heavy police presence on campus. Of note is that before the rally against the new president, a coalition of Kurdish students also signed on to the call.

In Brussels on Monday, a meeting of 250 delegates for a new "World Congress of the Iran Referendum Movement," an outgrowth of efforts last year to find support for changing the charter of the Islamic Republic, agreed on a slate of principles and a plan to begin drafting a new constitution by the end of 2006.

The developments in Iran and abroad are significant after many activists became despondent after the hunger strike of dissident author Akbar Ganji did not end with his release from prison. Mr. Ganji, according to his wife, has been confined to a solitary cell for over 90 days at Evin prison. For a brief moment over the summer, his open letters against the supreme leader catapulted him to national attention as he subsisted on water for nearly three months. But as he has remained in jail and the former intelligence commander, Mr. Ahmadinejad, has placed hardliners loyal to the ruling clerics throughout the government, the space for political opposition has dwindled.

But, according to Iranian author and former political prisoner, Amir Abbas Fakhravar, the era of Mr. Ahmadinejad has also spurred previously warring factions among the opposition to come together.

"You cannot imagine to what extent the selection not the election of Ahmadinejad has had a hidden benefit," Mr. Fakhravar said in a telephone interview."All the sectors of the student and labor organizations and young people have become much closer than before, and became more united. There has been a hardened unity created."