November 27-2015
A hardline ayatollah refused to express any sympathy for France in the wake of the Paris bombings, telling worshippers at Friday prayers that France had reaped what it had sowed.
Ayatollah Ahmad Kha-tami—no relation to the former president—blamed French politicians for wrong policies in dealing with terrorism and the Islamic State.
He said the misery and insecurity felt in Paris over the past days is a tiny sample of what Westerners have created for Syrians over the past five years. He said nothing about the role that Iran’s ally, President Bashar al-Assad, has had in indiscriminate air raids that have killed many Syrians.
Khatami complained, “The French have hosted anti-Iran terrorists like the Mojahedin-e Khalq for many years, those who assassinated Iranian President Rajaei, Prime Minister Bahonar, and Ayatollah Beheshti along with his 72 colleagues,” in 1981.
“Those snakes you brought up in Syria now are biting you,” said the ayatollah, citing a Persian proverb.
Khatami concluded by assailing what he called the double-standard approach of Westerners in dealing with terrorism.
Before the Paris attacks, a suicide bomb in Lebanon killed dozens of civilians in a crowded market. But that act was not condemned, Khatami said, while the attack to Paris was vehemently condemned.
This is a regular feature of Iranian state rhetoric—to paint the West as uncaring about the blood shed by Muslims.
But the White House did condemn the Beirut bombing. Its statement remains on the White House website where Khatami would have found it, if he chose to look for it. But the routine practice in Tehran has been to condemn others for silence in the face of terrorism without bothering to check the facts.