The memory of Mr Suharto's brutal suppression of Muslim activism also makes today's politicians more reluctant to take a hard line.

ECONOMIST: A model of tolerance

Saddam Hussein, the former Iraqi dictator, ruled for more than a decade following his brutal suppression of an uprising in the country's south after the first Gulf war.

ECONOMIST: Syria��s crisis

Moussavi himself has quite a number of nasty skeletons in his closet from his years as the prime minister during the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), with his brutal suppression of dissident movements, ideological purging of the universities and so on.

CNN: Commentary: Rigged or not, vote fractures Iran