Leadership Quote by Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani

A politician rarely hands you a sentence this clean unless it’s doing double duty. Rafsanjani’s “We don't have any bad memories of the people of the United States” draws a bright line between a government and its citizens, then invites the listener to step over it. The intent is tactical: defuse hostility without conceding anything on sovereignty, sanctions, or ideology. It’s an olive branch aimed carefully at “people,” not the state that bankrolls pressure campaigns and, in Iran’s historical narrative, orchestrated the 1953 coup and backed Saddam during the Iran-Iraq War.

The subtext is even sharper. By saying “memories,” Rafsanjani shifts the argument from policy to history and grievance, implying that whatever animus exists is political, not civilizational. That framing lets him keep the Islamic Republic’s default anti-imperial posture intact while signaling to American audiences (and Iranian pragmatists) that a relationship is imaginable. It’s also a quiet rebuke to the idea that Iran’s hostility is irrational or inherent: if there are “no bad memories” of ordinary Americans, then the problem is official conduct, not national character.

Context matters because Rafsanjani was a consummate insider-pragmatist, often associated with economic reconstruction and calibrated outreach. The line works rhetorically because it offers warmth without vulnerability: sentiment without apology, openness without capitulation. It’s soft power in a hard shell, designed to sound humane while keeping the real bargaining chips off the table.