Debbie Schlussel: Wimps: U.S. Grants Visa to Iranian Official Khatami
Why is the U.S. granting former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami a visa to visit Washington, next week?
Although he is the former President of Iran, he is very much in sync with the thinking of the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad government. When Khatami first became President of Iran, there were hopes that he was a moderate. In fact, he was and still is known as "the moderate." But now, it's said as kind of a joke.
Khatami never ended up being a moderate. It was more of the Iranian same-old, same-old. Iran under Khatami was hardly different from Iran under Khomeini. And hardly different than Iran under Ahmadinejad, but for the public rhetoric about the Holocaust and America. Privately, that rhetoric has been in Iran for decades, since the deposing of the Shah (with the help of Jimmy Carter). And it didn't change under Khatami. He was NOT a reformer in any way.
The last time Khatami was in the U.S. (in New York to visit the U.N. so he didn't need a special visa), he used the opportunity to meet with extremist imams here in the U.S., to encourage them. One of them was Imam Mohammed Ali Elahi, pictured above, who is a strong, vocal supporter of Hezbollah and of Ahmadinejad.
So why are we letting Khatami in? Why are we granting him a visa to deliver a BS speech on "reconciliation" at the National Cathedral on September 7th?
Ask President Bush and his State Department. For all of their bluster against Iran's totalitarian Islamofascist regime, granting this visa shows it's all empty. We're just wimps.
And it will be the death of us.
Posted by Debbie on August 29, 2006 11:18 AM to Debbie Schlussel