Iran proposes "Great Islamic Middle East" initiative

5/31/2005

Source: People's Daily

Iranian President Mohammad Khatami has proposed that all Muslims take what he calls the "Great Islamic Middle East" initiative to counter that of the U.S. "Great Middle East" plan, the English-language daily Kayhan (International) reported on Monday.

"I am suggesting a greater Islamic Middle East, but the U.S. says since Islam is a danger, the yardstick must be Western criteria," Khatami was quoted as saying on Sunday.

"The Middle East governments must take shape in favour of the public leadership, where the principles of democracy, freedom and progress in regional countries are guaranteed and the dependence on the outside world is discarded," the president said.

Khatami's comments were made following the U.S. so-called "Great Middle East initiative" proposal, which Washington has put forward to Islamic countries in order to promote 'western democracy and economic reforms' in the Middle East.

Iran is sharply critical of the U.S. plan as one that is "serving its own interests" and Iranian Supreme Leader Seyed Ali Khamenei has called on all Muslims to resist it.

According to Khatami Washington has sugar coated its initiative with democratic slogans in an effort to secure the control of the Middle East for itself and Israel.

"The U.S. Great Middle East initiative has produced a flurry of misgivings and outright rejections from Muslim countries already stirred by the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan," Khatami said.

Khatami, a religious as well as philosophical scholar, is well-known for what he called "Dialogue among Civilizations", which he put forward in 2000 to stand against American scholar Samuel P. Huntington's theory of "The Clash of Civilizations."