Ed, at the risk of sounding like an apologist, I think Khatami is more of a reformer than a member of the ruling clique. I studied him extensively in undergraduate courses, and he was often at odds with the mullahs during his time as President.

Everything in that part of the world is relative. What we see as small acts of reform were huge in Iran at the time, especially freedom of the press type issues.

Captain Ed hits the nail on Mohammad Khatami :
Khatami has often been called a “reformer”, but he has been as much of a member of the ruling clique as Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.  The ruling mullahs put Khatami in power to address their foreign- and do…

That would be great, but does anybody here really trust this guy? We didn’t when he was in office.

The “sovereign right of the people” form the legitimacy of any government, as Khatami notes, but that flies in the face of shari’a and the Iranian mullahcracy.

1)This guy is officially fantastic but doomed. A beacon of sanity in a sea of crazies. I also add that the Koran-swearing congressmen disagree with this guy, and they’re in the last, best hope – and I think there’s a major problem with that.

2)Try gelling “individual rights are incompatible with shari’a” with Wikipedia’s inalienable rights come from Islam page. (Still not letting that go!)

Khatami: Heretic?

Khatami: Sane.

Ahmadinejad: Insane.

(somebody hadda say it…;~)

Khatami may find himself dead soon

fixed that for ya, ;)