Khatami: We are terrorists

ATTA KENARE/AFP/Getty Images Former Iranian president and leading moderate Mohamad Khatami is taking some heat from the hardliners over some intriguing comments he made last week: What did the imam (Khomeini) mean by exporting the revolution?” he asked in the speech Friday to university students in the northern province of Gilan, according to the Kargozaran ...

By , a former managing editor of Foreign Policy.
595156_080506_khatami2.jpg
595156_080506_khatami2.jpg

ATTA KENARE/AFP/Getty Images

ATTA KENARE/AFP/Getty Images

Former Iranian president and leading moderate Mohamad Khatami is taking some heat from the hardliners over some intriguing comments he made last week:

What did the imam (Khomeini) mean by exporting the revolution?” he asked in the speech Friday to university students in the northern province of Gilan, according to the Kargozaran newspaper.

“Did he mean that we take up arms, that we blow up places in other nations and we create groups to carry out sabotage in other countries? The imam was vehemently against this and was confronting it,” he added.

As you might expect, Khatami is being branded as a traitor for these remarks, notwithstanding his (dubious) claims about Khomenei’s views:

It is obvious that Mr Khatami must answer for his anti-patriotic comments and explain why he has taken such a stance,” said [hardline Iranian newspaper] Kayhan, whose editor-in-chief is appointed by supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. […]

“Mr Khatami has to make it clear whether using fervent martyrdom-seeking young men to combat occupiers is an ugly and violent act or a fully human and admirable one?” demanded [one conservative] MP.

No word yet on whether the former president has been regularly sporting the flag of the Islamic Republic on his tunic.

Blake Hounshell is a former managing editor of Foreign Policy.

More from Foreign Policy

Children are hooked up to IV drips on the stairs at a children's hospital in Beijing.
Children are hooked up to IV drips on the stairs at a children's hospital in Beijing.

Chinese Hospitals Are Housing Another Deadly Outbreak

Authorities are covering up the spread of antibiotic-resistant pneumonia.

Henry Kissinger during an interview in Washington in August 1980.
Henry Kissinger during an interview in Washington in August 1980.

Henry Kissinger, Colossus on the World Stage

The late statesman was a master of realpolitik—whom some regarded as a war criminal.

A Ukrainian soldier in helmet and fatigues holds a cell phone and looks up at the night sky as an explosion lights up the horizon behind him.
A Ukrainian soldier in helmet and fatigues holds a cell phone and looks up at the night sky as an explosion lights up the horizon behind him.

The West’s False Choice in Ukraine

The crossroads is not between war and compromise, but between victory and defeat.

Illustrated portraits of Reps. MIke Gallagher, right, and Raja Krishnamoorthi
Illustrated portraits of Reps. MIke Gallagher, right, and Raja Krishnamoorthi

The Masterminds

Washington wants to get tough on China, and the leaders of the House China Committee are in the driver’s seat.