New signs Iran opposition is alive and well

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Iran's supreme leader Monday warned government opponents to end a campaign of civil disobedience, while defiant reformists proposed a nationwide referendum to resolve the ongoing dispute over the country's recent presidential election.

Meanwhile, the elite Revolutionary Guard sought to consolidate its power by moving to take control of the oil industry and by meddling in higher-education curriculum.

The moves show that neither supporters of opposition figure Mir Hossein Mousavi nor the camp backing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is backing down five weeks after an election marred by allegations of vote fraud.

The call for a referendum is the latest in a series of direct challenges against the authority of supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, whose demand weeks ago that Iranians accept Ahmadinejad as president for a second term has gone unheeded.

In pointed comments aimed at the reformist camp, Khamenei warned the country's political class that "any words they utter, any action they take, any analysis they express" could help the nation's international rivals.

It was Khamenei's first public comment since a prayer sermon Friday by Ayatollah Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a Mousavi backer, whose words of support for key reformist demands energized the opposition. Khamenei, describing the recent unrest as a foreign plot, appears to be trying to silence the opposition by vowing to crack down on dissidents and by rejecting the view that the country is in a state of political crisis.

The rift within the establishment was highlighted again Monday by the absence of Rafsanjani, chairman of two powerful government boards, and reformist clergy from an annual Muslim holiday gathering in the capital, according to television footage.

New street protests are expected today in downtown Tehran and other cities in support of Mousavi on the anniversary of the day in 1952 when soldiers refused to fire on demonstrators supporting Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh, a nationalist hero who was removed in a CIA-backed coup d'etat.

But Ahmadinejad's hard-line backers also showed little sign of backing down. Gen. Mohammad Esmail Saeedi, second in command of the Revolutionary Guard's Ashura Corps, said students should be taught at universities how to deal with "soft threats," a call to inject the military branch's view equating dissent with foreign conspiracy into higher education, according to Sepah News, its official Web site.

Ahmadinejad is also seeking to appoint Brig. Gen. Rostam Qassemi, a commander of the Revolutionary Guard, as oil minister, reported Khabar Online, a news Web site close to parliamentary speaker Ali Larijani. Qassemi now commands a multibillion-dollar Revolutionary Guard-run business involved in the oil industry.

"The June 12 election let us take power in our hand, and it is the most significant political development," Gen. Yadollah Javani, head of the guard's political bureau, said Monday, according to Sepah News. "It was a turning point that has introduced substantial changes into our political conditions."

Meanwhile, reports suggested that hard-liners also were attempting to tighten controls over the army. The opposition Web site Peiknet reported that the Revolutionary Guard has arrested 24 army officers who met Thursday to discuss the political crisis. Over the weekend, Khamenei replaced the head of the army's "ideological-political department."