We Are Finally Free From Khamenei’s Suffocating Gaze (Azadeh Moaveni, 3/04/26, NY Times)
Those who challenged him often died in mysterious and awful ways. Dissidents were hacked to death by assailants with machetes. In June 2009 his great political rival and fellow revolutionary Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani warned the supreme leader in a personal letter that he must accept change or “volcanoes fueled from burning hearts will emerge in society.” Mr. Rafsanjani quoted the 13th-century Persian poet Saadi at the letter’s end: “A stream of water can be diverted with a small shovel, but once it grows, even an elephant cannot stop its flow.”
The same month, believing the result of the presidential election to be fraudulent, a million Iranians poured into the streets. Many young protesters were arrested and taken to a detention center south of Tehran called Kahrizak, where many were tortured and some allegedly raped. Less than 10 years later, Mr. Rafsanjani was found floating in a pool, said to have suffered a heart attack while swimming. His bodyguards had apparently been away, and security cameras had been turned off.
His most despised adversaries — intellectuals and political rivals — bore his specific, spiteful rage. But thousands of people were killed in protests or imprisoned over the years, and just last month he oversaw the fastest, largest mass slaughter in modern Iranian history.