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United Nations — The Dialogue of Civilizations proposed by Iran's President Mohammed Khatami rises as one of the more interesting themes to emerge from the UN's recent glittering but guileless Millennial Summit. Unfortunately the messenger, the leader of the Islamic Republic of Iran, represents a sanguinary regime which has certainly done more to dismember and denude both the ancient Persian civilization and besmirch the name of Islam than anyone in the last Millennium.
It's a valid point to conclude that even friendly nations may not agree on everything--thus a Dialogue of Civilizations seems like a good idea. Yet its a sad truism to say that the since 1979 Islamic Revolution, the Tehran regime has been singularly anti- cultural, anti-religious tolerance, and anti-Persian, in some of the vilest ways. Stated more accurately, Khatami speaks for a regime which embraces the dour medieval doctrines of the Ayatollah Khomeini rather than espousing with pride, the three thousand years of Persian civilization. Persia's great traditions recalled in Isfahan, Shiraz or Persopolis remain the anthesis of the Ayatollah's.
President Bill Clinton and Madeleine Albright were polite enough to sit and listen
to Khatami in the cavernous General Assembly hall, if only to hint at opening a wider political rapprochement with Iran. Fine. Months ago, the Clinton/Gore Administration lifted economic sanctions on Iran which had been in place for twenty year following the debacle of the US Embassy seizure and the humiliating Hostage Crisis.
Yet, the Clinton/Gore Administration has farcically failed to halt or hamper Iran's ongoing nuclear weapons experiments. Furthermore, the droning diplomatic mediocrity of Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has been unable to present a pro-active Iran policy.
Despite his many flaws, the collapse of the Shah opened the flood gates in Iran and destabilized the geopolitical equilibrium in the entire Persian Gulf--the region still has not recovered from the Carter Administration's political myopia, which while chiding the Shah for human rights violations, ushered in the rule of the Ayatollahs.
Since then, Iran's regime has gratuitously sponsored terrorism, religious persecution and widespread human rights violations. Tehran's political thugoracy has forced two million Persians to leave their homes since 1979 rather than live in the Islamic Republic.
Today even Khatami walks a tightrope between his moderate views (relative in Tehran terms) and revolutionary hard-liners (paleo-prolitarians you don't want to know); even the President's address before the UN General Assembly was curiously censored by the Orwellian named Voice and Vision of Iran, though the official News Agency (IRNA) and some reformist papers reveled in the President's words.
Prof. Samuel Huntington in his erudite "Clash of Civilizations" argued that cultural and civilization norms more than the old isms (communism, fascism) will dominate the future battleground of ideas. Huntington's thesis remains that the fault lines between the Orthodox and Catholic world (Serbia/Croatia) or Islam and Christianity are among the places to anticipate conflict. Such ethno/cultural schisms have come to the fore of international relations in the wake of the end of the Cold War.
Interestingly during the UN session, President Khatami met with Russia's President Vladimir Putin to discuss Central Asia (oil), the Caspian Sea (oil), and the Caucasus (oil pipelines). Though Tehran would logically seem at odds with Moscow, Russia has been a conduit of nuclear and ballistic missile technology to Islamic Iran.
Khatami's Dialogue of Civilizations presupposes Iran's leadership role between the "poor and powerless" and the predatory West. As Khatami told the UN Summit, "Our task today is to transform the logic of international relations, distancing it from the logic of power." He added, "Today in the name of a great nation with a long history and ancient civilization, who through its magnificent spiritual revolution, has opened a new era of governance by the people in the context of religion, I declare that nations can no longer be marginalized."
As much as he may try, the cleric Khatami cannot hide behind the cloak of civilization and cultural exception clauses and still press for domestic openess and reforms, lest he become entwined in the spiraling centrifugal forces inside Iran. President Khatemi confronts a classic Persian puzzle perhaps of his own making.
John J. Metzler is a U.N. correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com.
