Khatami urges US, Iran to use restraint

CAMBRIDGE -- Former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami urged the United States and Iran to step back from the brink of confrontation yesterday in an appearance at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government that had been both heralded and condemned.

``Today we are faced with an astounding situation that seriously threatens both the East and the West," he warned a packed and mostly welcoming audience. ``One should not engage in violence in the name of any religion, just as one should not and ought not turn the world into one's military camp in the name of democracy."

Khatami, a reformist who failed to bring major changes to the fundamentalist Islamic Republic when he was president from 1997 to 2005, drew mixed reactions during his high-profile visit to Harvard.

About 200 demonstrators gathered outside, protesting Khatami's invitation to speak and chanting, ``Shame on Harvard."

Inside, 800 students, faculty, and members of the public listened respectfully and punctuated his speech with applause, before challenging the cleric with a barrage of questions about human rights abuses, terrorism, the dispute over Iran's nuclear program, and Iran's policy toward Israel.

Mehrangiz Kar, a human rights lawyer from Iran who was imprisoned during Khatami's presidency, said she came to hear him speak, because he was encouraging negotiations, not war, between the United States and Iran.

``I am disappointed with him when he was president for eight years in Iran, but I don't care about that now," she said. ``War is not a solution. I welcome anything that can stop this. . . . That's why I am here."

The five-city US visit of Khatami, who promised democratic reforms but was overruled by hard-liners, comes at a tense moment for the United States and Iran.

He arrived in the United States on Aug. 31, the deadline set by the United States and its European allies for Iran to cease enrichment of uranium to a state that can be used in the manufacture of a nuclear weapon. So far, Iran has refused to comply. President Bush says he intends to solve the problem with diplomacy, but has refused to take military action off the table.

Khatami's visit ends as Americans mark the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Iran has not been implicated in the attacks, but it has been called a major sponsor of terrorism, in part because of its support for anti-Israeli groups, Hamas and Hezbollah, which the United States considers terrorist organizations. The US government also accuses Iran of fomenting chaos in Iraq.

Governor Mitt Romney, calling Khatami a terrorist, announced last week that he would withhold State Police protection from Khatami's motorcade, leaving Cambridge, Boston, and Harvard police to help the State Department escort him.

Yesterday, Khatami, the most senior Iranian dignitary to tour the United States since the two countries cut off ties in 1979, echoed his familiar theme of the need for dialogue between civilizations.

In a flowery, 30-minute speech filled with references to Plymouth Rock and Abraham Lincoln, Khatami earned applause by condemning Osama bin Laden and terrorism, but got skeptical reactions during the question-and-answer session when he justified support for the Lebanese group Hezbollah, which sparked a 34-day war with Israel when it seized two Israeli soldiers and killed three others in a cross-border raid July 12.

He denied that Iran funds Hezbollah -- eliciting snorts of disbelief from the audience -- but also characterized it as a resistance movement, not a terrorist organization. ``For the last 10 years, they have not proven an action that Hezbollah has committed that falls under the definition of terrorism," he said; adding that Hezbollah ``only has the right to exist while occupation is still around."

Khatami said he never endorsed the call by Iran's current hard-line president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, to ``wipe" Israel off the map, but added: ``We must not forget that for the last 50 years, in theory and in practice, a nation known as Palestine has been eliminated from the map."

He said the United States needed to be more fair in its approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

``As long as the forces in the region believe that America is biased toward one of the parties, America cannot act as a mediator," he said.

Khatami's speech praised the spirit of America's early Puritans who ``came here in search of freedom," but said US politicians later changed course, pursuing ``world domination."

He appealed to the Muslim world to embrace democracy, which he called ``inevitable," and to stop acts of terrorism. He also told Americans not to try to change the Middle East with military force.

He said he believed the issue of Iran's nuclear program, which he maintained was for peaceful purposes, could be solved through negotiations if the United States was willing to treat Iran fairly.

Khatami ended his speech by switching abruptly from Farsi to halting English.

``I stand before you to once again express my deepest sympathy with the families of the victims [of Sept. 11] and with all the great American people," he said.

After his speech, he answered more than an hour of unfiltered questions, many of which directly challenged him about abuses committed while he was president.

One Iranian questioner asked about Zahra Kazemi, a Canadian-Iranian journalist who died in custody in Iran in a high-profile case that Khatami had investigated during his presidency.

Khatami said he had ``objected strenuously" to her treatment by Iran's judiciary. But he raised eyebrows when he added that the case ``could have been dealt with in a more pleasant manner" had Kazemi's relatives not turned it into an international issue.

Outside, people protested Khatami's invitation and screamed at a van that was believed to be carrying him to the venue.

Martin Paley, 54, of Newton, said Khatami's visit was ``very much like inviting Hitler to speak." In tears, Yas Shariat, an Iranian native, called Khatami a dictator posing as a reformer.

But inside, Khatami's audience was more forgiving. One Kennedy School student said Khatami's speech was ``more evenhanded" than she expected. ``It's an exciting beginning to a conversation that needs to start," she said.

Meg Woolhouse of the Globe staff contributed to this story.