A Crack in the U.S.-Iran Wall

President Mohammad Khatami, a warming voice in icy U.S.-Iranian relations, talked of possibilities and political realities in a significant television interview from Tehran Wednesday. The time has not come, he said, for normal relations between the two countries, but he opened a door for cultural and scholarly exchanges. That’s an extremely small crack in a very large wall, but one to which Washington and the American people should give consideration. It’s a gambit in a game worth playing.

Nothing the Iranian leader said suggested change in Tehran’s foreign policies. He specifically supported the Palestinian cause and denounced Israel while denying that Iran has any hand in the terrorism that continues to block political progress in the Middle East. Yet there was a tone of moderation in his comments that invites a studied look by this country and others.

Khatami, elected last spring over hard-line opposition, spoke of the religious underpinnings of American civilization and of Iran’s own Muslim heritage, and he referred to democracy and human dignity as being standards of U.S. governance. But he noted too the differences between the two countries, past and present. And he made his pitch not to Washington but to his American viewers, an interesting strategy.

The American government should give thought to Khatami’s proposal for an exchange of “professors, scholars, artists, journalists and tourists.” The barrier between the United States and Iran would not be the first gradually leveled by exchanges of people, thoughts and experiences. The Iranian president’s frank words should not be ignored. His election came as a pleasant surprise to many Iranians. Now his fledgling steps toward an opening should be welcome in the United States.