Not freely or fairly.
Nevertheless, he made it to the position of President. I think by sending a message to Khatami we might have made a huge difference in the long run.

It was tried, but abandoned in favour of another strategy.
Yes, by indirectly calling 74 million people evil. It looks like we're still in the medieval "Either your with us or against us" stage. Well done, people.

After Vietnam, I thought we'd really learned.