It’s not really news, but an AP story today confirms today that the nuclear issue is one thing that most Iranians can agree on:

Iran’s opposition groups — galvanized by the disputed re-election of Ahmadinejad in 2009 — have remained mostly silent on the nuclear standoff in what’s interpreted as a highly unusual nod of support to the ruling system. Former President Hashemi Rafsanjani, who has openly challenged the ruling clerics in recent years, joined the chorus denouncing the IAEA report.

Iran hawks often try to combine their opposition to Iran’s nuclear program with rhetorical support for the Iranian opposition. Some of the more aggressive hawks talk about directly supporting the opposition (which the opposition doesn’t want) or, as Romney said Saturday, backing armed insurgents to try to topple the regime (which the main opposition groups aren’t trying to do). It has become a standard talking point for Iran hawks that the administration “failed” to support the Green movement, but in the same breath they urge the adoption of some of the harshest anti-Iranian policies that the Green movement firmly opposes, because these policies also harm the Iranian people and because they would make things even more difficult politically for the Green movement inside Iran. As the story shows, the recent Western agitation over the IAEA report has provided the regime with a useful distraction from its domestic failures. Obviously, launching military strikes against Iranian facilities will allow the regime to exploit Iranian popular outrage and nationalist sentiment to the fullest extent.