But Ahmadinejad' s office denied these allegations and other hostage- takers, some of them now political opponents of Ahmadinejad- including Mohsen Mirdamadi, Hamid
Reza, Abbas Abdi, Mohammad- Reza Khatami, and Saeed Hajjarian Jalaiepour- confirmed his account.
It eases periodically, as in the brief"springtime" of the early days of the revolution,
or more recently under Khatami, but in the big picture this is just the ebb
and flow of a force that tends to politicize every act of theatre.
This is a quick
sleight-of-hand on Gerecht's part as he mentions how Khatami and Soroush have engaged with some of Popper's ideas, and then transfers
their interest in Popper to the entire movement, and this is supposed to lead us to believe that the entire movement is made up of“friends of Karl Popper.”.