From the beginning, I noticed that there were two sides to this protest. The first is outrage that Khatami is in the United States and speaking about tolerance and a dialogue of civilizations when there is no dialogue of any kind within his own civilization. The other is that Harvard is giving him the venue to do so. That’s why mixed in with all of the aforementioned slogans, you will see things like “Harvard — Useful Idiot” in there as well.

Intriguingly, the president broke a little news on the subject of Iran, acknowledging that he personally signed off on the U.S. visit this week by former Iranian President Mohammad Khatami. The trip has angered many conservatives because Mr. Khatami presided over the nuclear weapons development and cheating that Mr. Bush has pledged to stop. Why let him visit?

"I was interested to hear what he had to say," Mr. Bush responds without hesitation. "I'm interested in learning more about the Iranian government, how they think, what people think within the government. My hope is that diplomacy will work in convincing the Iranians to give up their nuclear weapons ambitions. And in order for diplomacy to work, it's important to hear voices other than [current President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad's."

When Iran's ex-president was having his picture taken with admirers at a gala dinner sponsored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations in northern Virginia, he received an unexpected message from some of his former countrymen. It was a summons to appear at the U.S. District Court of the Southern District of New York in Manhattan.

On Thursday, lawyers representing seven Iranian Jewish families living in Los Angeles filed a lawsuit demanding that Mohammed Khatemi pay compensation for the disappearance of 12 of their relatives, who were detained, imprisoned, and in some cases tortured as they tried to leave Iran for Pakistan between 1994 and 1997. Mr. Khatemi became president of Iran in 1997.

[...]

A lawyer for the seven families, Pooya Dayanim, said the two former police officers who served Mr. Khatemi with the writs at the Gateway Marriott in Arlington, Va., reported that the turbaned cleric expressed surprise upon receiving the court document. The complaint says the depredations the plaintiffs' kin suffered were "part of a pattern and practice of systematic human rights violations that was designed, ordered, implemented, and directed by the Defendant."

"It is a win-win situation," Mr. Dayanim said. "If he does not defend himself, then we will get a default judgment. If the State Department has to come in, they will embarrass themselves. It puts the administration in a bad position of defending him in federal court against victims of torture."