"I THINK I read somewhere on FR that it was Nicholas Burns that issued the VISA for Khatami"
well I went looking ...... and you are correct!!!
Out of the link below --- there was just one (1) postive remark regarding this Visa/visit. James S. Robbins - I know nothing about him.
But I must admit, his opinion was mine when I first heard of the visit. Letting Iran expose, in Khatami's words, Iran's world goals to the American people was not a bad move.
Out of the question for President Bush to 'debate' with Ahmadinejad as Ahmadinejad requested.
It just might wake up America!!!
That was my reaction regarding this visit!! And maybe my reaction was still remembering that Christiane Amanpour and bill clinton, in 1999/2000, had cooked up a trip to Iran to talk with the Iranians and Khatami, which was cancelled, I imagine because it took courage. Which bill clinton does not have. A trip at that time may have kept Ahmadinejad from an 'election'. There are good people in Iran.
Visa Not Denied An NRO Symposium
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YzhmNTQ0NDQ3MmIxZDlmZWVlNmViMzE0YjkzMTNiYmM=
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1692859/posts
Anne Bayefsky
U.S.-Iran policy, spearheaded by Nicholas Burns and Secretary of State Rice, is a train to nowheresville, literally.
Pooya Dayanim
The issuance of a United States visa to Mohammad Khatami, the former president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, is an insult to the American people, a slap in the face of Iran’s pro-democracy movement, a mockery of the immigration and antiterrorism laws, and a continuation of the schizophrenic non-policy of the State Department. To see him here, in both New York and Washington, D.C., cities attacked five years ago, will be heartbreaking.
Michael Ledeen
Giving Khatami prestigious platforms all over America is a dumb move, and it will enormously discourage the Iranian people. For those who believed Bush is serious about regime change, this is a numbing blow. Would FDR have given Goebbels a visa while the Reich was attacking Czechoslovakia?
James S. Robbins
It would be a brilliant move if President Bush or one of his chief foreign-affairs officials took the opportunity to really challenge Khatami in a public setting, something along the lines of the 1959 Nixon-Khruschev “kitchen debate” but better managed. And the emphasis should not be on the nuclear issue alone, but also, even primarily, on the aspirations of the Iranian people to be free, and the fear of the regime to allow the Iranians to experience true political freedom. Take Khatami on a tour of the Washington Post and ask him why the regime is shutting down independent media in Iran, that kind of thing. Put him on the spot in a dramatic way. But I fear if there is any criticism of Iran offered it will be limited to the technicalities of the nuclear issue, and presented in the same old stilted fashion. So the Iranian people will think we don’t care about their liberties, and the regime will know it for sure.
Grow up NRO. War is a continuation of politics by other means. With 50% or more of the the American people all ready expressing doubts about Iraq, thanks to the Junk Media and the Democrats endless seditious propagandizing, the Bush Administration is having to jump thru all these diplomatic hoops over Iran to try and build domestic concensus for action
At this time the Bush Administration has neither the domestic consensus nor the votes in Congress for anything other action.
Simply absurd how the Neo Isolationists keep fantasizing how if the US simply turns the cold solder and ignores the Iranian rulers some how the Iranian people will magically rise up and rescue the Neo Isolationists from having to do anything about the problem.
NOT one authoritarian regime has ever been over thrown by it's own inhabitants without the active support, and a threat by, some external power. The idea that a revolution will spontaneously break out some day in Iran if the US just continue to sit on it butt and wish it is absurd nonsense dreamed up by senile old "Realists". The same "realist" in the US Political Establishment who did NOTHING about the growing thread of Islamic Fundamentalism for 3 decades hoping it would go away.
Thanks for finding...and posting the links about Burns and Khatami's visit.
I only saw clips today on Fox of his speeches...but, if he is only speaking in front of Muslims...then all he is doing is winding them up to be LESS maleable to being assimilated into American society...but, since the people in America that might not be informed as to how "dangerous" his message is to our country...
It really isn't doing the "good" that James Robbins seems to think.
I know he is supposed to speak at some church...don't think that audience will be all Muslims...we will see if his
message is different than the one he gave to Muslim audiences.