Just when you thought Harvard couldn’t sink any lower, along comes a speaking invitation to former Iranian President Mohammed Khatami, the previous “reformer” president who didn’t do much reforming. While Khatami isn’t the reactionary Holocaust denier that current Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is, he makes no apologies for backing Hezbollah, shutting down all anti-government newspapers and flagrant human rights abuses that occurred under his tenure.
It is equally sad that Harvard’s once-esteemed Kennedy School of Government scheduled Khatami to speak on September 10, the eve of the five-year anniversary of 9/11. Governor Mitt Romney was so furious that he ordered the State Police not to provide security, standard protocol for any visiting head of state. And Khatami was greeted by over 200 protesters from Harvard’s Democratic and Republican student clubs (yes, there are Republicans there), who had united in solidarity to protest both the former president and the university’s inane decision to let him speak.
Kudos to Governor Romney and also to Boston College, who rejected a visit by Khatami. After Hezbollah started the latest Middle Eastern war and helped set Lebanon back a decade in its redevelopment, inviting a man who helped terrorism prosper is stunning in both naiveté and ignorance. It would be nice to extend an invitation to the real reformers in Iran, many of whom are either imprisoned or in exile. Maybe they could teach the guys at Harvard something.
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