Former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi
Rafsanjani

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DUBAI (Reuters) – Former Iranian president Akbar Hashemi
Rafsanjani died in hospital in Tehran where he was taken after
suffering a heart attack on Sunday, state media reported. State-run Press TV said Rafsanjani, 82, died despite efforts by
doctors to save him. Residents said a crowd gathered outside the hospital where
Rafsanjani was taken in the Tajrish neighborhood in northern
Tehran.

Rafsanjani was an influential figure in Iran, and headed the
Expediency Council, a body which is intended to resolve disputes
between the parliament and the Guardian Council. He was also a
member of the Assembly of Experts, the clerical body that selects
the supreme leader, Iran’s most powerful figure. Rafsanjani has been described as “a pillar of the Islamic
revolution.” His pragmatic policies – economic liberalization,
better relations with the West and empowering Iran’s elected
bodies – appealed to many Iranians but was
despised by hardliners.

His death is a big blow to moderates and reformists, depriving
them of their most influential supporter in the Islamic
establishment. Since 2009 he and his family have faced criticism over their
support for the opposition movement which lost that year’s
disputed election to former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

by AP-

Rafsanjani’s mix of sly wit and reputation for cunning moves — both
in politics and business — earned him a host of nicknames such as Akbar
Shah, or Great King, during a life that touched every major event in
Iranian affairs since before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

His presence — whether directly or through back channels — was felt
in many forms. He was a steady leader in the turbulent years following
the overthrow of the U.S.-backed shah, a veteran warrior in the
country’s internal political battles and a covert go-between in intrigue
such as the Iran-Contra arms deals in the 1980s.

He also was handed an unexpected political resurgence in his later years.

The surprise presidential election in 2013 of Rafsanjani’s political
soul mate, Hassan Rouhani, gave the former president an insider role in
reform-minded efforts that included Rouhani’s push for direct nuclear
talks with Washington. World powers and Iran ultimately struck a deal to
limit the country’s nuclear enrichment in exchange for the lifting of
some economic sanctions.

While Rafsanjani was blocked from the 2013 ballot by Iran’s election
overseers — presumably worried about boosting his already wide-ranging
influence — the former leader embraced Rouhani’s success.

“Now I can easily die since people are able to decide their fate by themselves,” he reportedly said last March.

However, Rouhani now faces a crucial presidential election in May
which will serve as a referendum on the deal and thawing relations with
the West. Rafsanjani was sharply critical of a move by Iran’s
constitutional watchdog to block moderates, including Hassan Khomeini,
the grandson of the Islamic Republic’s founder, from running for a top
clerical body in elections last year.

Rafsanjani was a close aide of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and served
as president from 1989 to 1997 during a period of significant changes
in Iran. At the time, the country was struggling to rebuild its economy
after a devastating 1980-88 war with Iraq, while also cautiously
allowing some wider freedoms, as seen in Iran’s highly regarded film and
media industry.

He also oversaw key developments in Iran’s nuclear program by
negotiating deals with Russia to build an energy-producing reactor in
Bushehr, which finally went into service in 2011 after long delays.
Behind the scenes, he directed the secret purchase of technology and
equipment from Pakistan and elsewhere.

Rafsanjani managed to remain within the ruling theocracy after
leaving office, but any dreams of taking on a higher-profile role
collapsed with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election in 2009 and
the intense crackdown that followed. Rafsanjani’s harsh criticism of
Ahmadinejad branded him as a dissenter in the eyes of many
conservatives.

In a sign of his waning powers, Rafsanjani’s stance cost him his
position as one of the Friday prayer leaders at Tehran University, a
highly influential position that often is the forum for significant
policy statements.

But some analysts believe that Rafsanjani was kept within the ruling
fold as a potential mediator with America and its allies in the standoff
over Iran’s nuclear program. His past stature as a trusted Khomeini
ally also offered him political protection. Rafsanjani was a top
commander in the war with Iraq and played a key role in convincing
Khomeini to accept a cease-fire after years of crippling stalemate.

Nearly 25 years later, Rafsanjani tried to revive his credentials
among a new generation of reformers by recounting proposals he made to
Khomeini in the late 1980s to consider outreach to the United States,
still seen by hard-liners as the “Great Satan.”

His image, however, also had darker undertones. He was named by
prosecutors in Argentina among Iranian officials suspected of links to a
1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people.
Some Iranian reformers accused him of involvement in the slaying of
liberals and dissidents during his presidency — charges that were never
pursued by Iranian authorities.

“The title of Islamic Republic is not just a formality,” he said in 2009 in the chaos after Ahmadinejad’s re-election.

“Rest assured, if one of those two aspects is damaged we will lose
our revolution. If it loses its Islamic aspect, we will go astray. If it
loses its republican aspect, (the Islamic Republic) will not be
realized. Based on the reasons that I have offered, without people and
their vote there would be no Islamic system.”

Rafsanjani — a portly man with only sparse and wispy chin hairs in
contrast to the full beards worn by most Islamic clerics in Iran — first
met Khomeini in the Shiite seminaries of Qom in the 1950s and later
became a key figure in the Islamic uprising that toppled the U.S.-backed
Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in 1979.

His smooth-skinned visage gave him another nickname that also fit his ruthless image: The Shark.

He was elected as head of Iran’s parliament in 1980 and served until
1989, when he was elected for the first of two four-year terms as
president.

Here, Rafsanjani began to build his multilayered — and sometimes
contradictory — political nature: A supporter of free enterprise, a
relative pragmatist toward foreign affairs and an unforgiving leader who
showed no mercy to any challenges to his authority.

Rafsanjani took a dim view of state control of the economy — even in
the turbulent years after the Islamic Revolution — and encouraged
private businesses, development of Tehran’s stock market and ways to
boost Iranian exports. His priority was to rebuild the country after
eight years of bloody war with Iraq that killed an estimated 1 million
people.

He built roads and connected villages to electrical, telephone and
water networks for the first time, earning the title of Commander of
Reconstruction by his supporters.

There were certain self-interests at play, as well.

Rafsanjani was assumed to be the head of a family-run pistachio
business, which grew to become one of Iran’s largest exporters and
provided the financial foundation for a business empire that would
eventually include construction companies, an auto assembly plant, vast
real estate holdings and a private airline. In 2003, he was listed among
Iran’s “millionaire mullahs” by Forbes magazine.

His economic policies won him praise from Iran’s elite
and merchant classes, but brought bitterness from struggling workers
seeking greater state handouts. Rafsanjani also faced warnings from the
ruling theocracy about pushing too far. None of his reforms dared to
undercut the vast power of the Revolutionary Guard — which Rafsanjani
briefly commanded, and which controls every key defense and strategic
program.

Rafsanjani’s complex legacy also was shaped by the times.

He took over the presidency in a critical time of transition just
after the death of Khomeini. He tried to make overtures for better ties
with the U.S. after the American-led invasion of Kuwait in 1991 to drive
out Iraqi forces, arguing that Iran paid too high a price for its
diplomatic freeze with Washington.

But he could not overcome opposition from Iranian hard-liners and
failed to win the backing of Khomeini’s successor as supreme leader,
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, for bold foreign policy moves. He also angered
the West by strengthening Iran’s ties to armed groups such as Lebanon’s
Hezbollah.

“One of the wrong things we did, in the revolutionary atmosphere, was
constantly to make enemies,” he said in a 1987 interview. “We pushed
those who could have been neutral into hostility.”

Rafsanjani was born in 1934 in the village of Bahraman in
southeastern Iran’s pistachio-growing region of Rafsanjan. His father,
too, was a pistachio farmer with a growing business that would later be
expanded into a colossal enterprise.

Rafsanjani was jailed for several years under the shah. He then
helped organize the network of mullahs that became Khomeini’s
revolutionary underground. In 1965, he is reputed to have provided the
handgun for the assassination of Iran’s prime minister, Hassan Ali
Mansoor.

Only months after the revolution, Rafsanjani was shot once in the
stomach by gunmen from one of the groups vying for power amid the
political turmoil. He was not seriously wounded — and neither was his
wife, who jumped in front to shield him from the attack.

“Great men of history do not die,” Khomeini said in announcing that Rafsanjani had survived.

In 1980, Rafsanjani was appointed head of the new parliament, or
majlis, and was often regarded as the second most powerful man in the
country. Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, the republic’s first president, who was
forced into exile in 1981 during a power struggle, described Rafsanjani
in Machiavellian terms.

“He’s a man with a marked taste for power,” he said in a 1989
interview with The Associated Press from his exile in France. “He’s a
political animal.”

Bani-Sadr said Rafsanjani also used to play the role of court jester to amuse Khomeini.

“He’s a man who makes people laugh,” Bani-Sadr said. “It’s a great
art. He makes Khomeini laugh. He uses this to gain his objectives …
He’s not brilliant as an organizer and he doesn’t have too many original
ideas, but he’s a manipulator and he’s intelligent.”

During the 1980s, he used his links with Lebanese Shiite extremists
to help secure the release of Western hostages in Lebanon and was a key
middleman — identified as “Raf” in Pentagon documents — in the secret
Iran-Contra dealings to funnel U.S. arms to Iran in exchange for money
used to fund Nicaraguan rebels.

Although Rafsanjani was seen by Washington as a potential ice breaker
in relations, his views were far from solidly pro-Western and displayed
conflicted positions.

Shortly after becoming president in 1989, he urged Palestinians to
kill Westerners to retaliate for Israel’s attacks in the occupied
territories.

“It is not hard to kill Americans or Frenchmen,” he said.

In February 1994, Rafsanjani survived a second assassination attempt.
A lone gunman fired at him as he was speaking to mark the 15th
anniversary of the revolution. Unhurt and unshaken, Rafsanjani calmed a
crowd of thousands and continued his speech.

The Iran-Contra fallout is an often-told tale about the dangers of crossing Rafsanjani.

After word was leaked to a Beirut magazine about Rafsanjani’s
involvement, he ordered the arrest of the source, a senior adviser to
the ruling clerics named Mehdi Hashemi, for treason and other charges.
Hashemi and others were executed in September 1987.

After leaving the presidency, Rafsanjani’s main forum was his spot as
one of the Friday prayer leaders. His sermons could run for more than
two hours and were delivered without notes. In 1999 — amid the first
major pro-reform unrest at Tehran University — he praised the use of
force to put down the protests.

A decade later, however, he was dismayed at the brutal crackdown
against opposition groups and others claiming Ahmadinejad won
re-election in June 2009 through vote rigging sanctioned by the ruling
theocracy.

Khamenei decided to throw his backing behind Ahmadinejad, effectively
snubbing Rafsanjani and his complaints. Later, Rafsanjani fell short on
efforts to mobilize enough moderate clerics in the Assembly of Experts —
the only group with the power to dismiss the supreme leader — to force
possible concessions from Khamenei on the postelection clampdowns.

Rafsanjani was forced out of the post in 2011, but remained as head
of the Expediency Council, an advisory body that mediates disputes
between the parliament and the Guardian Council, a watchdog group
controlled by hard-line clerics.

In January 2012, a court sentenced Rafsanjani’s daughter, Faezeh
Hashemi, to six months in prison on charges of criticizing the ruling
system.

In 2013, Iran’s election watchdog rejected his nomination for the presidential campaign, hinting at his age.

In 2015, a court sentenced his younger son, Mahdi, to a 10-year prison term over embezzlement and security charges.

Rafsanjani is survived by his wife, Effat Marashi, and five children.