Iran clerics meeting will test Rafsanjani's clout

EDITORS' NOTE: Reuters and other foreign media are subject to Iranian restrictions on their ability to film or take pictures in Tehran. Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Chairman of the Assembly of Experts, delivers the opening speech during the biannual meeting of the assembly in Tehran September 22, 2009.

BEIRUT (Reuters) - Veteran politician Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, keen to reassert his weakened influence by healing Iran's post-election rifts, may come under fire from hardliners again when he chairs a meeting of a top clerical body this week.

In recent months followers of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have criticized Rafsanjani for failing to give Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei unswerving support in a struggle to crush an opposition movement galvanized by the disputed June vote.

The aftermath of the presidential election, which plunged the Islamic Republic into its worst internal crisis, is expected to be high on the agenda when the powerful Assembly of Experts meets on Tuesday.

"The spirit of dismissal, elimination, insult and slander, which amount to a fatal poison in the country, should be avoided," Rafsanjani, 75, urged in a statement on Saturday.

The wily former president said the emphasis should be on "unity, commonalities and the guidelines of the Supreme Leader."

The 86-member assembly, which meets twice a year, supervises, appoints and in theory can sack the Supreme Leader -- a never-tested prerogative which hardliners contest.

Its two-day closed session coincides with renewed pressure by the United States and its allies for new U.N. sanctions to deter Tehran from pursuing nuclear work they fear is aimed at making atomic bombs, not just fuel for power plants.

Rafsanjani criticized the International Atomic Energy Agency for saying last week that it feared Iran may now be working to develop a nuclear-armed missile, describing the U.N. agency's report as "heavily influenced" by Western powers.

RAFSANJANI Center STAGE

Ali Ansari, an Iran analyst at St Andrew's University in Scotland, said Rafsanjani might be a target for hardliners who seem set against compromise with the reformist opposition.

"If he sits secure in his position it may reflect that he remains fundamentally strong within the system, but just can't do anything at this time, and/or that Khamenei is resisting calls to have him demoted," Ansari said.

Rafsanjani, who won an internal leadership contest in the assembly in 2007, has enough votes to fend off any immediate challenge to his post, said Ali Nourizadeh, who heads the Center for Arab and Iranian Studies in London.

He said there could be a lively debate in the assembly, with moderate clerics indirectly criticizing Khamenei for his wholehearted support for Ahmadinejad after his re-election in a vote which the president's opponents said was rigged.

Rafsanjani, seeking to calm the political turmoil, may ask the Assembly to close ranks around the Supreme Leader and seek a compromise with the opposition so that Iran can focus on the challenge from Western powers opposed to its nuclear program.

"If this reconciliation is approved by the Supreme Leader, most of the conservative forces would have to obey the order," said Mahjoob Zweiri, an Iran expert at the University of Qatar.

"They would have to calm down and stop their confrontation with reformists. Rafsanjani would then be considered the key figure in ending this chapter," he added.

Foreign Minister Manoushehr Mottaki and Revolutionary Guard commander Major General Mohammad Ali Jafari will attend the Assembly of Experts meeting as guests, Iranian media said.

(Additional reporting by Hashem Kalantari and Hossein Jaseb in Tehran, editing by Peter Millership)