Former President of Iran Mohammad Khatami (bottom L) speaks at the National Cathedral in Washington September 7, 2006. Listening are Reverend Samuel Lloyd (top R), Dean of the National Cathedral, and an unidentified interpreter (top L).
Washington Post: At Cathedral, Iran’s Khatami Urges Dialogue
Amid noisy protests and tight security, former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami issued a call at the Washington National Cathedral yesterday for leaders in both the West and the Islamic world to launch a historic dialogue to “rescue life from the claws of the warmongers and violence-seekers and ostentatious leaders.”
But Khatami, who served as president between 1997 and 2005, signaled that the time is not yet right for direct dialogue between the United States and Iran. He warned that the language of threats needs to end for any negotiation to have a chance — an indirect reference to U.S. and U.N. pressure to impose new sanctions on Iran because of disputes over its nuclear program.
The time is not yet right for direct talks between the United States and Iran because Iran does not yet possess nuclear weapons. Who is this TERRORIST THUG attempting to fool?
It is outrageous that the United States government allows one of Iran’s THEOCRATS and a senior propagandist to come to the National Cathedral and spue forth his BULL. Again, let’s look at who this TERRORIST is:
When he became president in 1997, Khatami was reputed to be a moderate democratic reformer. If he had lived up to that reputation, his arrival in America might well be worth celebrating. True, his style was not as incendiary as that of his successor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But he was just as committed to Khomeini’s radical revolution and its goal of worldwide Islamist rule. If there is one thing Khatami’s presidency made clear, it is that the man was no moderate.
His election came only after religious authorities disqualified 234 potential competitors they considered too liberal. In his own writings, Khatami has insisted that “only those who have attended religious seminaries should have a voice in government.”
He is no more opposed to terrorism than he is to theocracy. As minister of culture and Islamic guidance in the 1980s, he oversaw the creation of Hezbollah, the terrorist group that would kill more Americans prior to 9/11 than any other terrorist organization. During the recent war in Lebanon, he hailed Hezbollah as “a shining sun that illuminates and warms the hearts of all Muslims.” Throughout Khatami’s term of office, the US State Department identified Iran as the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism. It was on his watch that Bush named Iran a part of the “Axis of Evil.”
In 1998, Khatami’s intelligence agents brutally murdered Darioush and Parvaneh Forouhar, two well-known leaders of Iran’s liberal opposition. The following year, government thugs attacked student dissidents at Tehran University. Several students were killed. Hundreds were arrested and tortured.
Many Iranians had hoped that Khatami’s accession to office would mean more freedom of speech and of the press. But he presided over the shutting down of at least 85 newspapers and the prosecution of numerous journalists. Reporters Without Borders called Iran under Khatami “the biggest prison for journalists in the Middle East.” It was a prison as well for Iran’s religious minorities, all of which were severely persecuted.
But, he dresses in nice robes and talks in a soft deprecating manner, how can this mid-level Shiite cleric be such a SCUMBAG?
Well, despotic terrorist actions speak louder than soft-spoken requests for dialogue and speeches at cathedrals.
Folks, Khamai is a RADICAL ISLAMOFASCIST who wants world Islamic domination.
Former Iranian President Mohammed Khatami speaks at a news conference at the National Cathedral in Washington, September 7, 2006. Khatami on Thursday said Iran could discuss suspending its nuclear program once talks with the West had begun.
After the cathedral soft shoe, Khatami held a news conference.
The video is here at C-Span (Via Allah).
And there were protests.
A group of Iranians hold up pictures in protest of the visit to the United States from Iranian Mullah Mohammad Khatami, Thursday, Sept. 7, 2006, during a news conference at the National Press Club in Washington.
On the other side of Wisconsin Avenue, a crowd of about 200 shouted, “Shame on you,” as invitees waited to pass through security and enter the cathedral gates. Khatami spoke before an audience of 1,300.
Many of the protesters waved photographs of victims of Iranian government torture and pictures of Reza Pahlavi, the son of the last shah, toppled in the 1979 revolution. Banners urged, “No dialogue, no war, only regime change,” and “Free all political prisoners in Iran.”
So, now, onto Harvard for Khatami as the Iran Mullah Propaganda Show continues.
Just think, after Khatami finishes we have Iran President Ahmadinejad speaking (and wishing to debate President Bush) in New York at the United Nations.
Oh the Dialogue…..But Oh the ISLAMOFASCISM…….
Nasrein Mohamad, sister of Iranian political prisoner Akbar Mohamad, speaks at the news conference at the National Press Club in Washington September 7, 2006 to protest the U.S. visit of former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami .
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