A colleague and friend sent me this (she/he does not want to be identified): "Mousavi was (along with a couple of other major "reformists") were hotheaded rightwing Islamists back in the 1980s, and Mousavi in particular was responsible for purging universities of lefties, Jews, and Bahaiis. the other two people most associated with this same move from being university purgers to radical reformists are Abdulkarim Sorush and MohsenKadviar. The former is a philosopher and the latter a cleric, both of whom have very sophisticated arguments (the former based on Gadamer's hermeneutics; the latter based on his extensive training and certification as a faqih) about separating the mosque from the state. All three were involved with the early purges and now face the same fate...the other thing is that although Ahmadinejad has very populist rhetoric he
is actually a neoliberal bastard economically, so...."