During his two-week trip to the USA – interestingly, the mullahs behind the rascally current President allowed his visit and, not only that, our security personnel let him in – he wisely acknowledged, “In the crime of 9/11, two crimes were committed. One was killing innocent people. The second crime was masking this crime in the name of Islam."



He spoke, with security provided by the State Department, at a venue in suburban Washington, titled "The Dialogue of Civilizations: Five Years After 9/11." The event was sponsored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

The good turban-topped man who, unfortunately, failed to win reelection, is the most senior Iranian official to drop in on Washington in the last 25 years.

Encouragingly, he spoke in front of American and Iranian flags that were draped in their mutual folds. He himself was graced by his more likable credentials. For instance, he was, to the extent one can be in Iran, a reformist leader and, two, he was one of the first foreign leaders to condemn the 9/11 monstrosities.

He went on to tell the audience, "Demonstrate to others that whatever is said about Islam in the media is not correct" and combat the "wave of Islamophobia and hatred of Islam that we unfortunately are experiencing today.”

He presented three goals for Muslims that are actually welcome. "Your responsibility and our responsibility is to be first a good citizen in whatever country you live; to try for yourself and your children to move up the ladder of social achievement and education; and third is to fight the vague Islamophobia that has been created by those who don't have the best interests of Islam at heart."

Most commendably, he stated that "killers who go among others and kill others in acts of terror, if they identify themselves with Islam, they are lying. You Muslims who live in the United States should be representatives of enlightenment and don't allow those who create this Islamophobia to speak for the religion.”

Laudable speechifying, and we especially note the inclusion of the Iranian word for “enlightenment,” which, in its capital "E" meaning, is the very remedy Islam's misrepresentatives require.

Yet, given his successor's recent effort to crackdown on liberal and secular profs at Iran's universities, one wonders how he managed to represent his liberal agenda here.

One also wonders what the monomaniacal Ahmadinejad is cogitating in his behind-the-curtain Iago moments. What, a defeated rival feted in Washington, while I, a pariah, scheme unloved?

Could Khatami's trip be part of the obvious efforts by the crafty mullahs at home to obfuscate whether Iran is a nation of nuclear malefactors who need the West to apply the remedial lessons of sanctions?

Unavoidable suspicion aside, let's toss a congratulatory turban high in Khatami's honor.

Then we shall wait to see what the future brings, which, inevitably, is hung with question marks, trembling in time's uncertain winds.