A Relative Unknown Leads Election Challenge to Iran's Ahmadinejad

Students chat at the Iranian Academy of the Arts, designed by presidential candidate and architect Mir Hossein Mousavi. Critics say he helped purge pro-Western academics in the Islamic revolution. (By Newsha Tavakolian For The Washington Post)

But many remember a different Mousavi, a hard-line revolutionary who they say played an important role in closing Iranian universities for two years, forcing female students to wear head scarves and purging professors deemed Western.

Mousavi has publicly denied being part of what is called the cultural revolution here. But Abdolkarim Soroush, a former member of a council that organized the purge, has accused him of not being honest about his past.

"Tell us about your important role in these events. Tell us the truth," Soroush, one of Iran's main contemporary political thinkers, recently wrote in an open letter.

Back then, Mousavi, who briefly served as foreign minister, said Iran's revolution must be spread around the "entire world."

Freedom of speech was not on his agenda in those days. "Anyone can think in their hearts, but whoever speaks out or acts against the revolution would see the system fighting him with all its strength," he said in 1983 after becoming prime minister.

But reality sank in as he tried to manage the country through its eight-year trench war with neighboring Iraq.

During the war, Mousavi played a key role in logistical planning and created a coupon system to ensure that Iranians' basic needs were met despite sanctions imposed by many Western countries, who largely supported Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

Mousavi "created a war economy that helped us fight Saddam Hussein," said Hussein Alaei, an influential retired admiral in the Revolutionary Guard Corps who had extensive contact with Mousavi in those years. "The country was stable, inflation was low . . . there was war, but nobody was hungry. We all respect him for his management."

In 1984, Mousavi said on state radio that exporting the revolution was no longer a realistic goal.

"It seems that we were wrong in our initial assessments with regard to the fast spread of the revolution," state newspaper Kayhan quoted him saying a year later.

Over the years, "Mousavi evolved from a revolutionary to a pragmatic manager," said Masoud Soltanifar, a former deputy governor of one of Iran's Persian Gulf provinces.

Premier in Wartime

In 1988, the last year of the war, Soltanifar was one of the first Iranian officials to learn that the USS Vincennes had shot down an Iranian civilian airliner en route to Dubai, killing all 290 passengers and crew members on board.

"I called Mousavi. He didn't believe it. 'The Americans wouldn't do such a thing,' he said," Soltanifar recalled.

Mousavi ordered him to sail out to debris floating in the Persian Gulf. It soon became clear there were no survivors. "Only when I told him what I saw with my own eyes he realized the Americans had really shot down a civilian aircraft," he said.

The U.S. Navy said the downing was an accident. Iranian officials are convinced the plane was shot down to pressure Iran into signing a cease-fire agreement with Iraq.

The eight-year war ended a month later.

After Mousavi's two-term tenure ended in 1989, Iran's constitution was changed and the post of prime minister was abolished for administrative reasons.

During a debate televised live on Wednesday, Ahmadinejad accused Mousavi of being a pawn of Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, one of the most influential politicians in Iran. Ahmadinejad accused Rafsanjani of leading an elite of power-hungry politicians who think of themselves first and the people later. Mousavi denies that, saying that the president makes public allegations to cover up his own failures.

During a debate Sunday with cleric Mehdi Karroubi, the other significant challenger to Ahmadinejad, Mousavi strongly attacked the president.

"We are facing a phenomenon: a person who can stare at the camera and say outright lies to people," he said of Ahmadinejad, who during the debate showed numerous statistics indicating that inflation and unemployment were both down.

"When the president sits here and lies, nobody confronts him. I'm a revolutionary and speaking out against the situation he has created," Mousavi said in closing. "He has made the country full of lies and hypocrisy. I'm not frightened to speak out. Remember that."

Special correspondent Kay Armin Serjoei contributed to this report.