Khamenei and Rafsanjani: The split is now public

Rafsanjani and Khatami are surprisingly absent and Khamenei doesn't try to hide it

For the first time, Hashemi Rafsanjani has revealed a deepening dissatisfaction with how Khamenei is treating him and his allies. How? He (and probably Mohammad Khatami) simply hasn't attended Khamenei's annual meeting with all top government officials.

Khamenei, however, has not even tried to hide the fact that Rafsanjani, who holds a top position in the regime as the head of an important council, and Khatami, the only former living president except for Rafsanjani, have visibly been absent in the event.

He has placed his favorite officials (Haddad Adel, Speaker of the Parliament, Ahmadinejad, President, and Shahrudi, the head of the judiciary) on his right side, and deliberately put two empty poshti's (cushions) on his left side, a sign that two of his guests are missing.

There are lots of things like this happening in Iran these days which remain completely out of the world's radars, especially to those who can't read Persian.

Read what I wrote about this, as well as people's comments, on my Persian blog.