Has Khatami Forgotten?

I couldn't believe it when BBC reported ex-Islamic Republic president Khatami as having made this statement:
'On Friday Mr Khatami said the Islamic republic's founder, Ayatollah Khomeini, had not wanted to export the revolution by armed force. '

The news report continues:
"What did the Imam [Khomenei] mean by exporting the revolution?" he asked in a speech on Friday to university students.
"Did he mean that we take up arms, that we blow up places in other nations and we create groups to carry out sabotage in other countries? The Imam was vehemently against this and was confronting it," he said.

Actually as far as I can remember, yes he did, very much so and Khatami himself, who at the time was the Minister of Guidance, chaired one of these meetings!

See the full text and translation of the minutes of the meeting which was leaked to the Times newspaper at the time:

The meeting commenced with the speech of His Eminence, Ayatollah Khatami, the Minister of the Islamic Guidance, who said the following : "In the name of God, The Merciful, the Compassionate."Dear brothers, I wish to welcome you on behalf of the International Islamic Movements Organisation, and to explain in brief why this meeting has been called. On 24th of 'Oribehesht' - (14 May, 1984), I , accompanied by the Head of this movement were received by our beloved leader to whom we presented our progress report. Th Imam, expressed his satisfaction with the behaviour of the leaders of the sheikhdoms of the Persian Gulf and of the Saudi regime. Of Course, he was not pleased either with others who pretend to be leaders of the Islamic nations. After moments of silence which were evidence of his deepfelt anxiety and dissatisfaction, His Eminence in his usual style of firmness concerninig all living matters made certain comments which are as follows :'From the beginning of our revolution, we have had many enemies, but our expectations from Muslims was something else...'based on a plan that has been prepared in almost 200 pages and on which you will be subsequently informed, it has been decided that the strikeforce which at present is composed of a few groups of 10-20 people each, who are currently serving in the Lebanon, should be increased to the size of a brigade. This force, for security reasons, and for the purposes of making sure that legal impediments do not delay its formation, will be formed under the aegis of either the Revolutionary Guards or the Armed Forces. Of course, the decision in this respect will rest with His Eminence, the Leader. At this time, we are concerned with its creation. This force will act independently and will present all its reports directly to the Commander in Chief. Because the carrying out of this plan required the assistance of all revolutinary organs, the matter was presented to His Eminence in that initial meeting, and he accepted the proposal. What has been said has been a brief introduction, and now we will enter the main substance and I shall pass the platform to Brother "Mirhashem", who is responsible for this organisation. .... Brother Mirhashem :"From what was said at the beginning, there was some reference made to the creation of a brigade. For the information of all present, I must say that we have at present a number of dedicated groups who are ready for action and who have, to the outside world become known as suicide groups. These groups have already performed certain actions. But since regional reactionary forces out of fear from the Islamic Revolution and the hard blows of the fighters of Islam, with each passing day under different pretexts are preparing themselves more and more, and this in itself is a big threat for the continuation of the revolution, these groups that we have are by themselves inadequate. Also, the personnel in these groups are committed only because of their beliefs for which they are ready to do anything, but they lack warfare experience. Therefore, the personnel of this brigade must from the point of view of military combat experience be of a very high echelon. If we wished to commence this task from the beginning, that is from the training stages, by the time that we can prepare such people for utilisation at least one year will have elapsed, and this is something that will create an interlude in our activities and will award our enemies more time. Therefore, it has been decided to select dedicated religious and fully committed candidates from all combat 'nahad' organisations so as to prevent any interlude in the continuation of our operational activities. .....