This week’s speeches by former Iranian President Mohammed Khatami were largely what we expected: calls for “civilizational dialogue,” defenses of his country’s nuclear program and its supposedly “peaceful” intent, and whitewashing President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s abysmal human-rights record. Unsurprsingly, there was also gratuitous criticism of the Bush administration and hypocritical posturing on Middle East security. Still, under a relatively optimistic scenario, it could end up serving U.S. interests by undermining Mr. Ahmadinejad.
Then again, it is difficult to make a very strong case that Mr. Khatami is substantively better. For example, it was during his eight years as president, which ended last year, that Iran’s covert nuclear weapons program made its most important advances. As for Mr. Ahmadinejad, he remains determined to consolidate his power in Iran. The latest this week is his call for a purge of “liberal and secular” academics in the universities, whom he regards as a fifth column of pro-Western opinion.
In this country, many conservatives were upset with the Khatami visit in light of Iran’s record as the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism and Mr. Khatami’s role in it during his presidency. We agree that Mr. Khatami’s defenses of the regime are nowhere near acceptable to the United States; that his “reformist” presidency was anything but; and that his role in the mullahcracy should leave any Westerner aghast.
The divisions between the current hardline leadership and Mr. Khatami should not be overplayed — as the Western media’s “reformist” meme routinely does. But they do exist. They caused Mr. Khatami to be denounced publicly in Iran as he travelled here. For instance, one Iranian newspaper called for his defrocking (Mr. Khatami is a Shi’ite cleric) because he dared to travel to the infidel United States.
Little wonder: While here, he denounced the idea of leaving the newly formed Iraqi government “at the mercy of terrorists and insurgents.” Contrast that with the official line from Iranian spokesmen demanding unconditionally that the United States leave Iraq. It’s very possible that this is simply a good-cop, bad-cop game, that Mr. Khatami and Mr. Ahmadinejad are heads of the same hydra. But the cost to the United States in this case, if that proves to be true, is small. To the extent that Washington might be able to play these figures off against one another, sowing dissension and discord among the country’s ruling elites, giving someone else a platform may result in something useful.
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