Letter: Oklahoma City: thoughtlessness about America and Iran

From Mr Philip Hurst

Sir: So the perpetrator of the bombing of the federal office building in Oklahoma City turns out to be a home-grown nut. Yet how much print and paper, even in your own pages, not to mention broadcast time, was wasted on speculation about "the Iranian connection"? Within minutes of the blast last week, pundits of all complexion were predicting dire retaliation by an "enraged" United States against Iran which, of course, must be to blame for this terrorist act.

I am no apologist for the authoritarian clerical regime in Tehran, yet I have to admit that I feel far safer when visiting Iran - where I am always treated with the greatest courtesy and friendliness by all Iranians, officials or ordinary citizens - than I do visiting, say, Pakistan or several other countries in the region. Certainly we have grounds for sharp dispute with Iran - Rushdie aside - but is it any wonder that the Iranian government feels paranoiacally resentful of Western attitudes when the hysterical response of the Western press to a bombing anywhere in the world is that it must be the result of Iranian-supported extremist groups?

It was indeed an embarrassing spectacle to see the smoking ruins of the Oklahoma City office building juxtaposed with newsreel footage of Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani, as though there were an immediate and logical connection. I feel that on my next visit to Tehran next week, my first action should be to apologise to my Iranian friends for the prejudice and bigotry that we in the West are all too ready to show towards Iran.

Yours faithfully,

PHILIP HURST

London, SW7

23 April