Now there are signs that Osama bin Laden's subsequent railing against an alleged anti-Islam crusade in retaliation for the tragedy may be falling on deaf ears or failing utterly to impress many among the world's estimated 1.2 billion Muslims. This despite widespread concern in the West over noisy calls to jihad against established governments.

Bin Laden appears only to have compounded earlier exaggerations with his latest intemperate remarks about the UN, its loyal, law-abiding Arab member states and the organization's Nobel Peace laureate Secretary General Kofi A. Annan, whom he called an international criminal in a videotape delivered from al Qaeda's Afghanistan mountain hideout and broadcast by the satellite TV station al Jazeera.

Prior to the postponed General Assembly ministerial debate that finally got under way Saturday with a keynote address by President George W. Bush-and will continue through next Friday-the world body marked the UN Year of Dialogue Among Civilizations with statements honoring and emphasizing what unites humanity. The participants, including Annan, rejected attempts like those of bin Laden and his backers to promote divisions and sow discord among the world's differing ethnic, religious and cultural groups. Ironically, this special commemorative year was designated by the General Assembly at the initiative of Iran, which the US State Department still characterizes as a "rogue state" and supporter of international terrorism.

Judging from remarks attributed Saturday to Iranian President Mohammed Khatami in an interview with The New York Times, his first with an American publication, the Iranian government is not as black as it's been painted by some Washington critics. Could it be that the time is approaching when the White House and State Department may want to reconsider their public postures on Iran?

Khatami, a Muslim cleric, told the Times that he doesn't believe that bin Laden's message "really resonates strongly in the Muslim world." In his subsequent UN address, the Iranian leader called the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon the work of a "cult of fanatics who self-mutilated their ears and their tongues and could only communicate with perceived opponents through carnage and devastation." Islam's message is one of peace and it should not be blamed for movements that are extremist and terrorist, Khatami insisted.

US Ambassador John D. Negroponte hailed the Iranian initiative, calling it "important and welcome." Negroponte cited September 11 as "the antithesis of all that we would hope to achieve in a dialogue of civilizations, if by civilization we mean a mode of communal existence that expresses a people's finest qualities and greatest gifts and blessings."

A danger confronting the world today was not that "we speak in different languages, but that we don't always listen in any language," he said, adding that the art of hearing one another and responding to what was said were "the fundamental dynamics of dialogue." "In our globalized world," he continued, "we should encourage, not hamper, the free flow of ideas. We should respect, not push aside, the values and beliefs of other cultrures.

And now it is time for us to look into the fire yet again and bring the best qualities of our civilizations to bear on our problems. Not the worst."