An unwelcome mat for Iranian's visit

GOVERNOR ROMNEY'S position to deny the former Iranian president security during his Boston visit is not only hypocritical but foolish, and in the long run it hurts American security (``Romney bars state security for Iranian's Harvard visit," Page A1, Sept. 6). Doubtless trying to build points for his expected 2008 presidential run, Romney freely labels Mohammed Khatami a ``terrorist" with the reckless abandon that the Bush administration uses for anyone it doesn't like.

If Khatami is a terrorist for running a country that funds groups such as Hezbollah, was President Reagan a terrorist for leading the United States when it funded Al Qaeda in a fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan? If Khatami deserves cold treatment for his crackdown on student protesters, why are Chinese premiers always welcomed here with red-carpet treatment? These double standards rob from us whatever moral legitimacy we still retain.

Further, by snubbing former heads of state , we send the message that we are not interested in diplomacy, which leaves only violence as an alternative. This does not make our country safer.

DAVID NURENBERG
Somerville

ROMNEY'S COMMENTS about Khatami's visit to Massachusetts were entirely apt. It was outrageously offensive of the US State Department to extend an invitation to such a criminal against humanity. Apparently Foggy Bottom's appeasement of archaic religious zealots, while wronging a distinct majority of Iranians fighting for a secular and peaceful Iran, is its trendy version of democracy.

The mullahs are like drunk drivers; after a couple of offenses that led to killing innocent people, they should have been put away for breaking the social contract.

If the European Union, Russia, and the Chinese are really concerned about the mullahs' nuclear threat, they should stop turbo-grabbing Iranian natural resources that belong to the hungry people of Iran; they should get their corporations to divest from making further deals with the terrorism-financing mullahs; and they should simply give the tireless, brave Iranians, who since 1979 have never stopped fighting the mullahs (despite the western media's refusal to report any of it), the chance to do the rest.

BANAFSHEH ZAND-BONAZZI
Brooklyn
The writer, an Iranian activist, is the daughter of Iranian journalist and political prisoner Siamak Pourzand.

OUR COUNTRY has just been through nearly two terms of this kind of myopic, knee-jerk stuff. Would a President Romney give us more of the same? We don't need more ignorance in our discourse with the world. This moment in our history calls for subtlety and discrimination. No one's proposing the pomp of a state visit for Khatami. However, Mitt might have been better off to keep quiet, and listen and learn.

PAUL GASEK
Brewster

HARVARD SHOULD not be inviting representatives of countries that have held Americans hostage and have vowed to destroy us to speak at any forum. This elitist disregard for the feelings of Americans is what passes as enlightenment in some circles. I am thrilled to see a rational adult response to such an insult. Thank you, Governor Romney, for sparing taxpayers the affront of paying for this outrageous stupidity. Maybe Khatami can take the bus.

RON BOGAN
Danvers

ONE OF the founding principles of a free society is the concept that the open exchange of ideas is beneficial to the body politic. In answer to Jeff Jacoby's indignation (op-ed, Sept. 6) over the State Department's allowing the speaking tour of former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami: We do not grant him license to speak in this country to demonstrate our democratic values to Iran, but rather to affirm our own enlightenment.

Khatami presents a point of view. He will not find an overly receptive audience in the United States, and we can choose to oppose those who agree with him in the battlefield of ideas. It is this privilege, not our fear of his message, that truly differentiates us.

ANDY ROSENFELD
Ashland

AS AN invited lecturer to Iran in June 2001 (and again in July 2004), I had the good fortune to meet many young Iranians, mostly university students in Tehran. Some later came to the United States to pursue graduate programs at MIT, Stanford, and other universities. Most stayed in Iran. They were like students everywhere -- energetic, intelligent, optimistic, and future-directed. They sensed positive change in their country -- toward more freedoms and better relations with the West.

In the days after Sept. 11, I received heartwarming condolence e-mails from newly found friends in Iran. In Tehran, there were candlelight vigils showing solidarity with us in our time of immense grief. In thinking about Iran or any country that is associated with international tensions, we must not think only of stereotypes or simplistic caricatures. Iran is just as diverse as we are.

The best hope for Iran's future is from within, building upon the optimism and energy of the young people whose recently found limited freedoms are now being eroded. Shutting off dialogue to all Iranians because of the outrageous actions of the current regime seems shortsighted and self-defeating.

RICHARD C. LARSON
Cambridge The writer is a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.