It didn’t take long for the mullahs of the Guardian Council to react to public criticism from former president Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani over their conduct in the rigged presidential election.  Just a day after Rafsanjani’s remarks at Friday prayers, a well-connected hardline newspaper accused the cleric of taking part in a “conspiracy.” In case that didn’t make the point plainly enough, Iran’s minister of intelligence noted that Rafsanjani opposed Mahmoud Ahmadinejad — and so do the jooooooos:

A hardline editor seen as close to Iran’s top authority accused former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani on Saturday of backing “law-breakers,” highlighting deepening establishment divisions after a disputed election.

Hossein Shariatmadari, editor-in-chief of the Kayhan daily, also criticized Rafsanjani, a powerful cleric and rival of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, for saying in a sermon on Friday that the Islamic Republic was in crisis. …

“Most certainly Mr Rafsanjani is familiar with the definition of a crisis … The most meaningful word to describe the current conditions is a conspiracy,” Shariatmadari said in an editorial. He is seen as a close ally of Khamenei. …

Intelligence Minister Gholamhossein Mohseni-Ejei also took aim at Rafsanjani, saying his top priority had been to prevent Ahmadinejad’s re-election “at any cost,” the pro-government Vatan-e Emrooz newspaper reported.

The minister said arch-foe Israel also opposed Ahmadinejad winning a second term and had plotted to assassinate him in meetings with an exiled Iranian opposition group, media said.

Is the notion that a crisis exists such an insult?  After all, the mullahs themselves mobilized the Basij to crack skulls — and worse.  The Revolutionary Guard took control of internal security and warned people not to congregate in the streets, lest they find the business end of their firearms and batons.  Would the mullahs have ordered all of that without a crisis?  If so, doesn’t that tend to support the argument that Khamenei and the mullahs are tyrants, and would that not also qualify as a crisis?

Mohseni-Ejei takes the cake for desperate propaganda, though.  While Rafsanjani has been a political opponent of Ahmadinejad and to some extent Khamenei as well, Rafsanjani belongs to the same radical Islamist clique as both men.  Until now, Rafsanjani hasn’t even been a cleric out of the Ali Sistani mode; he believes in cleric rule.  To suddenly imply that a Khomeini revolutionary could be a tool of Israel is so risible that only the current lunatics on the Guardian Council could have thought such an accusation a good idea.  Even by their own count, at least 40% of the country voted against Ahmadinejad. Are they all also tools of Israel?

This shows that Rafsanjani burned his bridges, like Mohammed Khatami did a couple of weeks earlier, by acknowledging reality.  The mullahs are drawing battle lines instead of acting rationally to contain the crisis.  This crisis will get deeper and bloodier before it ends.