Iran hardliners condemn Khatami

Members of Iran's parliament have made a formal complaint to the intelligence minister over remarks made by former President Mohammad Khatami.

On Friday Mr Khatami said the Islamic republic's founder, Ayatollah Khomeini, had not wanted to export the revolution by armed force.

The MPs accuse him of jeopardising national security and want to know if he had clearance to make the remarks.

They say his comments implicate Iran in events it has had no role in.

'Sabotage?'

Mr Khatami's remarks have been interpreted as suggesting that Iran supports insurgents in other countries.

"What did the Imam [Khomenei] mean by exporting the revolution?" he asked in a speech on Friday to university students.

"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 said.

His remarks have been condemned in Iran's conservative media as an attack on the country's Islamist system of government.

Mr Khatami has said his words were not directed at Iranian policy.

from BBC.co.uk

Let me reiterate how much both Clinton and Bush II blew it when it came to Iran. Khatami was a reformist, willing to open dialogue with the West, and not keen on armed expansion of Iranian regional power (or beliefs). But rather than pursuing anything by way of diplomacy both presidents remained stalwart in their refusal to deal with the country and increased pressures on the regime. The Iranian Hostage crisis was 30 years ago--get the Hell over it already. Anyway, the point is just that the US missed a great opportunity to support reformists...and the window is now tightly shut since Amadinejad has been elected (along with scores of other hardliners throughout the government). Oh well, maybe in another 3 decades....