Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, Iran’s former president and arguably the Islamic Republic’s second-most influential political figure, died of a heart attack Sunday. He was 82. Almost immediately, journalists and some diplomats described his death as a blow to moderation in Iran. Thomas Erdbrink, the Tehran bureau chief for the New York Times, tweeted, “The death of Rafsanjani… is a major blow to moderates and reformists in Iran.”

Rafsanjani was a master strategist and an initiator of Iran’s game of good cop-bad cop, but he was no moderate. He was well known for his corruption, affluence, and commitment to the Islamic Republic’s genocidal ideology.