His remarks came as Teheran and the UN Security Council head for a showdown over Iran’s nuclear energy program, which is suspected of masking an effort to develop atomic weapons.

Khatami is the most senior Iranian to visit the United States since Washington broke off diplomatic relations following the 1979 takeover of the US embassy in Teheran.

He did not comment on the current impasse but spoke of the need to promote dialogue and understanding in order to stem the current cycle of violence.

“As America claims to be fighting terrorism, it implements policies that cause the intensification of terrorism and institutionalised violence,” Khatami said through an interpreter.

“The power of powers enjoys access to international instruments for securing their supremacy and strengthening their dominance, only seeking total subservience of others,” he told the Islamic Society of North America’s convention.

He castigated the United States for finding it “more convenient”  to deal with despots than democratic regimes that do not serve its interests and he denounced the current “war mongering against Islam and Islamophobia.”

“The outcome of such behaviour is the cyclical increase and buildup of hatred towards policies implemented by the United States throughout the world, and particularly in the Middle East,” he added.

He urged American Muslims to challenge the misguided images of Islam portrayed by the media and politicians so that a more balanced foreign policy can be achieved.

“Public opinion can be rescued from the grips of ignorance and blunder and the domination of arrogant, warmongering and violence-triggering policies will end,” said Khatami, a reformist who was president from 1997 to 2005 and whose successor is the more hardline President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Khatami, who founded and heads the International Institute for Dialogue Among Civilizations and Cultures, was granted a US visa on Tuesday even though he was president when the United States declared that Teheran backed terror activities.

He noted Saturday that he was quick to denounce the terrorist attacks of September 11 “since I knew this inferno would only intensify extremism and one-sidedness and would have no outcome except to retire justice and intellect and sacrifice righteousness and humanity.”

At an earlier speech Saturday, Khatami denounced terrorists and extremists who “exploit the name of religion” and said they are not people of “true faith.”

Speaking to a group of Islamic community leaders at a suburban Chicago mosque, Khatami said a dialogue needs to be created between the secular and religious worlds.

“The people of true faith and the people who are truly concerned about humanity... These two communities can work together,” Khatami said in his first public appearance in the United States.

“They can communicate among one another for the betterment and better understanding of the cause of humanity,” he said through an interpreter. “The dialogue can help to bring these two communities together.”

Neither religions that preach a complete withdrawal from the material world nor the modern religion of science and materialism can eliminate insecurity, Khatami said. Only by finding a “third way” that addresses both the spiritual needs and the material needs can a “life of peace and satisfaction” be achieved, he said.