AS AN IRANIAN refugee, I am probably the last that person would stand up and defend anyone in the Iranian government, past or present. However, the illogical utterances of those opposing former President Khatami's visit last week are so un-American that I feel compelled to speak. Judging Khatami's presidency in context of Iranian political structures reveals that the arguments raised against his visit boil down to one shabby un-American argument: We don't like him or what he says.
The most often cited statistics against Khatami involve his crackdown on freedom of speech. Even a superficial glance at the Iranian political system and at Khatami's presidency reveals that this is ludicrous. Khatami tried harder than any other president since the 1979 revolution to create conditions of free speech and a free press. However, the office of the presidency is a relatively weak and ultimately powerless institution in Iran. Because the Supreme Leader (Ayatollah Khamenei) derives his power from Valayati Faqih -- rule by expert jurist -- he has veto power over everything the president does. Therefore, Khatami's ability to help dissidents or the cause of democracy was contingent upon the will of Khamenei (who, incidentally, cares more about aggrandizing his own power than democracy).
Nonetheless, Khatami tried to open up free speech only to predictably meet the iron fist of Khamenei, who ordered many dissidents arrested and some executed. Note the irony: Khatami's attempt to open up free speech caused what many noted as a huge crackdown on the press.
Furthermore, one of Khatami's greatest political achievements was saving the Majlis (parliament), the only quasi-democratic institution in Iran. In August 2000, under Khatami's encouragement, the parliament began debating reform laws to protect the nascent liberal media. However, Khamenei immediately ordered the debating to stop.
The Majlis, hungry for reform, loudly protested Khamenei's order and soon it looked like a Khamenei-supported militia would storm and dissolve the Majlis. Not a moment sooner did Khatami step in and convince the Majlis that their continued existence would do more for democracy than any other course of action. Incidents like this happened time and time again, and Khatami learned what many of those protesting his visit don't seem to know: The president can do very little for democratic causes in Iran, particularly when the Supreme Leader is in the process of consolidating his power.
Some cite that because Ahmadinejad questioned the Holocaust, Khatami also did so. This argument, with its obviously racist undertones, implies that all Iranians think alike. Khatami has never questioned the Holocaust, and in fact, when Ahmadinejad questioned the Holocaust, he did so as a (very distasteful) rhetorical technique: He was trying to say that if it happened, why don't the Germans and not the Palestinians pay for it? Of course one can raise many valid objections to his reasoning, but his statement in context is a lot less frightening than "I don't think the Holocaust happened."
One could then ask why didn't Khatami unabashedly condemn Ahmadinejad? The answer is simple: He and his children would return home to prison, particularly because the Supreme Leader is strongly involved in Ahmadinejad's current policies. Some further complained that all the questions had to be approved in advance; this is particularly ironic given the same conditions are often true for President Bush. Also, according to Politics Prof. William Quandt, most if not all of the questions were approved.
Some people have committed the simple fallacy of "we hosted, therefore we accepted." Did the numerous times we hosted Soviet leaders imply we accepted them too? Rather, we kept in line with good American tradition: We listened, even to an alleged enemy and then we evaluated. Some argue that there is no place for Khatami's views, even in the free market of speech. The free marketplace of speech, a term popularly coined in the 1919 Harvard Law Review by Zechariah Chafee Jr., would absolutely welcome the often ridiculous points of view associated with even Iran's current president, Ahmadinejad. This article argued that all points of view should be allowed in the marketplace, without exception, and that the American citizenry would naturally weed out the unreasonable and unworthy. To see one of the most influential articles in our freedom's history butchered by people who have never read it is a shame, as is the ludicrous irony in claiming to have a free market of ideas that, actually, has an arbitrary standard of decency -- that would be a slightly restricted or, in other words, a "not free" market of speech.
I could go on. The point is that we are acting against our own interests when we try to paint the world in black and white. By the same logic, as Quandt told his comparative politics class, we shouldn't have hosted Gorbachev, but doing so helped accelerate the collapse of the "evil empire." Robbing Khatami's presidency of its context robs us of insight that could be valuable to our strategy in the Mid-East. Prof. Quandt also told his class there is no way that Khatami came here without President Bush's explicit approval. President Bush understood that Khatami's visit will implicitly help ameliorate and promote diplomatic means by which to solve our current problems with his country and in the region. Was it merely coincidental that soon after his visit, Iran promised to temporarily pause its nuclear program? It's a shame that University students, albeit a few, failed to see what President Bush so wisely saw.
Sina Kian's columns usually appear Tuesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at skian@cavalierdaily.com.
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