The Baltimore Sun published an evasive opinion piece by a conspiracy theorist in favor of the nuclear weapons deal reached by negotiators for the United States, Russia, China, the United Kingdom, France and Germany with Iran. It did not publish CAMERA’s rebuttal letter, so here it is:

“Commentary writer Ray McGovern (“No more ‘military option,’” July 21, 2015) omits essential details regarding a prepared U.S. intelligence report on Iran and its purported nuclear program. By failing to note documented problems with the 2007 U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on the program and omitting geopolitical context, the author misleads readers on an important issue.

“McGovern—who routinely expounds conspiracy theories regarding the Iraq War and the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks (some of which appear at a “9/11 truth” Web site)—claims the 2007 NIE “concluded in November 2007 that Iran had stopped working on a nuclear weapon at the end of 2003 and had not resumed that work.” Yet, he fails to note an important factor that may have influenced this alleged Iranian decision. By the end of 2003 large U.S. military forces had overthrown regimes in two countries that border Iran—Afghanistan and Iraq—and remained in place.

“Nor does McGovern reveal that even now the U.S. cannot be certain that Iran did in fact stop its program in 2003. That’s because the recent agreement reached between the Islamic Republic and the United States and its partners fails to commit Tehran to fully disclosing the history of its nuclear effort.

“McGovern, a former intelligence official turned fringe activist, also omits problems that can be found within the pages of the NIE itself. One big one: A footnote to the line proclaiming “in fall 2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program” clarifies that the estimate defines “nuclear weapons program” to exclude “Iran’s declared civil work related to uranium conversion and enrichment.” Knowledge gained in such activity can be transferred, at least in part, to weapons development.

“Sun readers deserve more than a superficial gloss like McGovern’s when it comes to Iran’s alleged nuclear program.

Sincerely,
Sean Durns
Media Assistant
CAMERA
Washington, D.C.”

When Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank described McGovern as a “liberal activist,” CAMERA noted (“Washington Post-Watch: Post Trips When Bibi Meets Obama,” July 8, 2010) that McGovern is “a former CIA official who helped found VIPS — Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity — [and] he’s long blamed ‘O.I.L.,’ oil, Israel, and logistics, which he defines as the desire for permanent U.S. bases in Iraq, for dragging the United States into war against Saddam Hussein. He signed a petition claiming the U.S. government knew about the 9/11 plot; he blasted Obama for ‘caving into Israel’ in 2009 for not sustaining the pro-Saudi, pro-Chinese, anti-Israeli Chas. Freeman’s nomination to chair the National Intelligence Council; he insists Israel intentionally attacked the U.S.S. Liberty spy ship during the 1967 Six-Day War although U.S. and Israeli investigations determined the assault was accidental. ” The Baltimore Sun could benefit from a little more due diligence when vetting freelance Op-Eds.

The Washington Post reminded readers that the brutal Islamic State movement and Saudi Arabia’s U.S-supported monarchy “espouse similar conservative views of Sunni Islam” (“Suicide blast hits Saudi mosque; Islamic State claims attack near Yemeni border, threatens more,” Aug. 7, 2015). A suicide bombing claimed by the Islamic State on August 6 in Asir, Saudi Arabia reportedly killed more than a dozen people.

The dead included at least 10 Saudi security personal and three workers. The bomber struck a Sunni mosque near the border with Yemen in an apparent attempt both to hurt the Saudi monarchy, which opposes the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq (ISIS or the Islamic State), and generate more tension along the border between Saudi Arabia and Yemen. While Saudi Arabia’s influential Wahhabi clerics as well as ISIS deem “Shiites as apostates… Saudi officials permit Shiite worship and rites.”

Although both the Saudi government and the Islamic State adhere to puritanical schools of Sunni Islam, the Islamic State has claimed responsibility for numerous recent suicide bombings in the kingdom, The Post reported.

In Yemen, the Saudis are leading a military intervention by several Sunni-dominated Arab countries against Houthi rebels believed to be supported by Shiite Iran’s Islamic revolutionary government. “Suicide blast hits Saudi mosque” was a useful reminder that, among other things, in intra-Arab and intra-Muslim conflicts, pro-Western doesn’t necessarily mean moderate.–Rosie Lenoff, Intern

USA Today’s “For Israeli kids, a trigger for trauma” (June 4, 2015), noted the emotional toll on children living under constant threat of terrorist rocket attacks. And not just children; reporter Michele Chabin showed the effect even civil defense drills can have on adults in Israel.

However, the otherwise informative dispatch ends by observing that “in Gaza, the children don’t even have” access to bomb shelters like most Israeli youngsters do.

It doesn’t tell readers that in the Gaza Strip—ruled by U.S.-designated terror group Hamas—the leaders spend billions of dollars on rockets and cross-boundary tunnels to strike at Israelis while they expect their own civilians to serve and sometimes die as “human shields.” Why no civilian shelters in Gaza? They’re not a Hamas priority.

(The above item is a slightly-expanded version of a CAMERA letter to USA Today that was not published.) — by Sean Durns

University of Maryland Prof. Jeffrey Herf is the author of acclaimed works on the Holocaust, modern European history and antisemitism. These include Reactionary Modernism, The Jewish Enemy, and Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World among others. His July 2 essay for The Times of Israel, “Taking the Ideas of Others Seriously: A Lesson From German History and the Iran Nuclear Issue,” is based on Herf’s May 3, 2015 address to CAMERA’s annual board luncheon in New York City. The essay relates to the current debate over the agreement reached between the United States, Germany, France, Russia, China, the United Kingdom and the Islamic Republic of Iran over the latter’s purported nuclear program—and what Herf insists is the concurrent need to heed Iranian rhetoric that is a “mix of Nazi propaganda, Islamist ideology, and a peculiarly Iranian vision of world domination.”

“The Iran debate has never been about Right and Left in any conventional sense of those terms,” Herf observes, “It has been about whether the leaders of the United States government actually believe that the Iranian leaders believe what they say again and again.”

Herf warns that the Islamic Republic—which regularly calls for “Death to America” and “Death to Israel”—should be taken at its word.

The professor notes that “the problem of underestimating the role of ideology in politics remains very much with us.” It’s a problem evidenced in Adolf Hitler’s rise and simultaneous inability of “intellectuals and policymakers” to take the German dictator’s Jew-hatred seriously.

“On numerous occasions beginning in 1939,” the CAMERA speaker noted, “Hitler publicly announced that he intended to ‘exterminate the Jewish race in Europe.’…Contrary to some conventional wisdom, he did not keep his policies about the Jews a secret, nor did he speak in euphemisms. He spoke bluntly and often about his intention to exterminate the Jews.” In a Jan. 30, 1941 speech the dictator proclaimed that “the role of Jews in Europe would be finished.”

Herf notes that in an editorial the next day, The New York Times brushed off Hitler’s proclamation, calling the dictators words “worthless.” Why did it do so? Why—he wonders—did so many feel that Hilter could be appeased and his threats were meaningless?

In Herf’s estimation this dismissiveness stemmed from a “Western tradition” in which “sophistication or ‘realism’ about the ways of the world means the refusal to take the ideas of others seriously as guides to their actions. It means,” Herf says, “viewing the ideas of others as tools, instruments, techniques, and methods in the service of other unstated but actually far more fundamental purposes. For the realist and the sophisticate, in this sense, to take the ideas of others seriously, especially when these ideas offend our understanding of common sense, is a sign of naivety and gullibility.”

Put bluntly, it’s a “rationalist bias” which allows self-styled “realists” to dismiss antisemitic conspiracy theories and threats of violence against Jews as being ridiculous on grounds that those issuing such threats and espousing those theories can’t “possibly believe such rubbish.”

Yet, Herf notes that the antisemitic beliefs of Hitler are alive and well today—including among the leaders of an Iran purportedly seeking nuclear weapons. “At its core,” he says, “the debate about Iran is one about how we interpret the core beliefs of the Iranian regime and whether we take these ideas seriously as policy.”

The noted Holocaust historian warns:

“Hilter was exceptional in many ways but he was not unusual in history in acting on the basis of firmly held beliefs. Previous generations found it hard to take those absurdities with the seriousness they deserve. We have no excuse for repeating their blunders or for reassuring ourselves optimistically that things will turn out for the best.”

The full text of Prof. Herf’s article derived from his speech to CAMERA can be found here. —Sean Durns

A poll conducted by the Palestinian Center for Public Opinion and sponsored by a D.C.-based think tank, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, has findings that may be new to those who’ve followed the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Washington Institute fellow David Pollock characterized as a “surprise” a response that most Palestinian Arabs in both the Gaza Strip and West Bank (Judea and Samaria) want economic cooperation with Israel. He notes that “a majority (55 percent) in the West Bank, and nearly as many in Gaza (48 percent), also say they would ‘like to see Israeli companies offer more jobs inside’ those areas.”

This desire for jobs corresponds with what residents in areas polled stated to be their priorities: family and money. Only 14 percent of Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank and 24 percent of Gazans polled said that “working to establish a Palestinian state” was their top priority. In contrast, “making enough money to live” and “having a good family life” polled much higher in both areas.

The Palestinian emphasis on increased economic cooperation contrasts with the stated objectives of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, advocated by groups like the Jewish Voice for Peace and others who support the economic ghettoization of Israel. BDS was founded by Palestinian “civil society groups”—including U.S.-listed terror groups Hamas and al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade of Fatah, and Syrian extremist groups. The latter of these groups have the stated objective of destroying Israel; the BDS movement seeks to wage economic warfare against the Jewish state. Although such a goal appears to be in conflict with many Palestinian Arabs—as this data illustrates.

The poll also showed a sharp difference in the opinions of West Bank Arabs and those in the Strip regarding “responsibility for the slow pace of reconstruction in Gaza.” Forty percent of the former put most of the blame on Israel. Conversely, a plurality (40 percent) of those actually living in Gaza blamed Hamas—which has ruled the region since the first and only elections in 2006—more than they blamed Israel (29 percent).

By a large majority, Gazans (88 percent) said the Palestinian Authority (PA)—which through the corrupt Fatah organization currently rules the West Bank and was ousted from Gaza by a violent Hamas-led coup in 2007—“should take over the administration” there.

When it comes to peace with Israel, 58 percent of West Bankers and 65 percent of Gazans polled said that even if a “two-state solution” is negotiated, “the struggle is not over and resistance should continue until all of historic Palestine [Israel] is liberated.” In other words, Palestinian Arabs in both areas want to see Israel destroyed. 56 percent of the respondents in the West Bank and 84 percent in Gaza support the use of violent attacks to achieve this end. Despite this pronounced support for violence, 74 percent of West Bankers and 83 percent of Gazans say “Hamas should maintain a ceasefire with Israel.”

The survey firm, based in Beit Sahour in the West Bank, conducted its poll from June 7-19, interviewing representative samples of 513 Palestinians in the West Bank and 408 in Gaza, with an estimated margin of error of about 4.9 percent. The rest of the findings of the poll can be found here.— Sean Durns

The European Maccabi Games—a Jewish sporting event held every four years and also open to non-Jews—took place this July in Berlin, Germany. Jewish athletes were faced with threats and intimidation that went widely unreported in most major media outlets.

According to The Jerusalem Post (“Euro Maccabi games marred by anti-Semitism in Berlin,” July 1), Berlin police noted that two “youths” hurled antisemitic insults at six Jewish men while tossing “an object” at the group, before fleeing. The incident occurred in the city’s Neukolln district, which has a large Muslim population. It was not the only case of violence and harassment apparently connected to the Maccabi Games.

“A man with an Arab background” was arrested for yelling antisemitic slurs at two security guards at the hotel housing more than 2,000 athletes and others associated with the games. The Jerusalem Post notesd that hotel is only “900 meters from the Al-Nur Mosque, a hotbed of radical Islam.”

Jewish athletes were warned about traveling in large groups in Neukolln and told not to wear “visibly Jewish items,” such as Stars of David and kippahs. It was also recommended that Jews travel in taxis and avoid “sensitive areas of Berlin”; those with high Muslim populations often hostile to Jewish people.

Many athletes—mindful of the Olympics hosted by Hitler’s Germany in 1936 Berlin—harbored high hopes for the games, The New York Times noted in its pre-event coverage (“At Maccabi Games, Jewish Athletes Vie for Medals While Mindful of Past,” July 27). As The Times noted, descendants of Jewish athletes barred from the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin were invited to “honor the past while sending a clear message about the survival of Jewish life into the present.”

Yet, while The Times covered the expectations of the games, it did not report the attacks against Jewish athletes. Many other major media outlets similarly failed to provide coverage. The Los Angeles Times alone—in a 96-word Times Wire Report item—mentioned that a “well-known” Berlin landmark was “defaced with anti-Semitic graffiti”(“World Briefing; Germany; Anti-Semitic slogan mars Wall,” Aug. 2). That landmark was a painting on a remnant of the Berlin Wall showing the Star of David in the middle of a German flag.

More detailed coverage of the targeted attacks against Jews in a city and country defaced with its own history of murderous antisemitism was largely absent from U.S. papers.

In his coverage of the attacks for ,The Jerusalem Post, Foundation for the Defense of Democracies Fellow Benjamin Weinthal noted 2014 witnessed “192 criminal acts of anti-Semitism in Berlin…..The American Jewish Committee’s Berlin office told The Post that there were additional 15 acts of violence and 70 incidents of anti-Semitic outbreaks.”

This corresponds to a 2015 study by Tel Aviv University’s Kantor Center, which found a marked increase in antisemetic violence, as CAMERA has noted (“Violent antisemetic attacks up 40 percent—Where’s the Coverage,” April 21).

Violent attacks on Jews in Germany’s capital during a sporting event meant to transcend the Nazi ban on Jewish competitors in the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Where’s the coverage?—Sean Durns

The Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) is a top-tier military command that oversees the United States’ largest intergovernmental military alliance, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. NATO’s composed of 28 independent member countries and an additional 22 countries who participate in the associate Partnership for Peace program.

NATO’s first commander was World War II hero and future President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1950. Among his successors can be found a future secretary of state, a national security adviser, and a presidential candidate. Yet, when former SACEUR U.S. Navy Admiral James Stavridis recently expressed quotable concerns over a topic receiving considerable news media coverage, the Iran nuclear deal, hardly any major media outlets reported them.

In an interview with MSNBC’s Morning Joe talk show on July 29, 2015, Stavridis—who served as SACEUR under President Obama from 2009 to 2013—commented on the agreement concluded July 14 between the United States, Russia, China, France, Germany, the United Kingdom and the Islamic Republic of Iran over the latter’s purported nuclear program violating the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Stavridis said the deal as structured may allow for Iranian cheating to go undetected. He found the proposed verification procedures particularly troubling:

“I think the top [issue] is the verification regime, which is starting to roughly resemble Swiss cheese,” Stavridis charged that “you can drive a truck through some of the holes. I am very concerned about that.”

The retired U.S. military commander said Iran’s side deal with the International Atomic Energy Administration (IAEA) over inspections also posed problems. “Reportedly, it [the side deal] puts Iran in the position of actually procuring samples as opposed to having them taken by the IAEA.”

His biggest worries, however, were over what he called “the teeth of the alligator”—the $100 to $150 billion in sanctions relief that the proposed arrangement would give to Tehran. These are funds other military leaders like out-going U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Martin Dempsey have stated are likely to be used by the mullahs to fund terrorism and Shiite militias currently fueling instability in Iraq, Lebanon, Yemen, and Syria.

The admiral’s comments—including his dismissal of assertions by President Obama and others that the only option besides the proposed deal was war—were nowhere to be found in most major media outlets such as USA Today, The New York Times, The Washington Post, and others.

However, both The Jerusalem Post (“Top US general distances himself from choice of Iran deal,” July 29) and The Washington Free Beacon (“Ret. Admiral Stavridis: ‘You Can Drive a Truck Through’ Holes in Iran Deal,” July 29) covered Stavridis’ comments and in the case of The Post—recent remarks by Gen. Dempsey also dismissing the assertion war with Iran or this deal were the only options.

With a former head of NATO offering serious criticism of the widely-reported Iran deal, now being considered by Congress, where was the coverage?

A clip of the Admiral’s remarks can be found here.—Sean Durns

The July 16, 2015 murder of four United States Marines and a sailor at two different military sites in Tennessee by Mohammod Youssuf Abdulazeez, which the FBI is reportedly investigating as an act of terrorism, has attracted considerable media coverage. Yet, in reporting the shooter’s background and self-proclaimed “search for answers”, The Washington Post failed to note specifically what may be an important aspect: prior investigations of links between Abdulazeez’s father and U.S. listed-terror organization Hamas.

The New York Times (“Inquiry Focusing on Chattanooga Gunman’s Trip to Jordan in 2014,” July 17) reported that Abdulazeez’s father, Youssuf “had been investigated about seven years ago” for “giving money to an organization that apparently had ties to Hamas, the Islamic militant group in Gaza that the United States and other Western nations consider a terrorist organization.” The Times also noted “a similar investigation was conducted in the 1990s” into Abdulazeez’s father and — although neither investigation led to charges — he was placed on a watch list for a time.

The Washington Post failed in print to note the purported connection to Hamas—the virulently Islamist organization ruling the Gaza Strip. In an article exploring the Chattanooga gunman’s background and more specifically his family, (“Chattanooga Gunman came from a middle class Muslim Family,” July 17) the newspaper states without further details that the father “was investigated by the FBI several years ago and put on the terrorism watch list but was later removed.”

Other printed articles by the newspaper offer a bit more specifics, noting that the investigation was for “donating to Palestinian groups suspected of having ties to terrorism” (“Marine’s killer set off no red flags,” July 18) and a “radical Palestinian terror group.” (Chattanooga Shooter’s real, online lives seem to take divergent paths,” July 18). But neither identified the group as Hamas.

A Lexis Nexis search reveals that the paper did identify the group—but only online in a blog piece that appeared shortly after the shooting (“As investigators probe motive in Chattanooga rampage, a portrait of the shooter emerges,” July 17).

Unmentioned by either newspaper is whether the investigation into Youssef was related to the biggest U.S. terrorism funding trial to date. At that trial’s conclusion in 2009, U.S. Treasury officials connected what was once the nation’s largest Muslim charity—The Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development—to fund raising for Hamas. Evidence introduced at trial also indicated that the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) was, like Hamas, a Muslim Brotherhood derivative.

Although The Post failed to publish the purported Hamas connection, it noted that the murderer himself had no such compunction in mentioning the terror group. Abdulazeez reportedly “talked about…battles between Israel and Hamas in Gaza” with friends and even “blamed some of the bloodshed on U.S. foreign policy.” (“Tenn. Shooter struggled with clash of faith, drugs,” July 19).

The motives of the gunman are still being investigated, but The Post should have clarified in print the father’s apparent Holy Land Foundation-Hamas link.—Sean Durns

Both Iran and terrorism have received considerable news coverage. The attack in Chattanooga, Tennessee that killed four United States Marines and one sailor on July 16, 2015 and the conclusion of U.S.-led nuclear negotiations over the Islamic Republic of Iran’s purported nuclear program two day previously kept both subjects in the headlines. FBI officials reportedly were investigating the Tennessee murders as terrorism, but a connection to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, if only inspirational, has not been confirmed.

The July 21 Pentagon announcement of a July 8 U.S drone strike in northwestern Syria killing Muhsin al-Fadhli—leader of an al-Qaeda group dubbed by some D.C. analysts the Khorasan Group—provided the press with another opportunity to cover the ongoing threat of terror. Yet, while noting al-Fadhli’s death, some major media outlets omitted his connections to the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism: The Islamic Republic of Iran.

According to previously disclosed classified U.S. intelligence estimates, the Khorasan Group had been planning attacks on the U.S. homeland and had “been working with bomb makers from al-Qaeda’s Yemen affiliate to test new ways to slip nonmetallic explosives past airport security. Officials fear that the Khorasan militants could provide these sophisticated explosives to their Western recruits, who could sneak them onto United States-bound flights.”

The New York Times reported (“Qaeda Leader in Syria, a Bin Laden Ally, Is Killed in Strike, U.S. Says,” July 22, 2015) Muhsin al-Fadhli was identified in 2012 by the U.S. State Department as al-Qaeda’s “leader in Iran” where he directed “the movement of funds and operatives.” The Times observed that prior to arriving in Syria and working with al-Qaeda affiliate al-Nusra Front, the terrorist leader had been living in Iran where he was one of a number of al-Qaeda operatives who had fled into the country from Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks. The newspaper noted that Iranian officials have since claimed that Fadhli and other al-Qaeda terrorists were under house arrest while there, but have failed to provide any proof of that or an explanation of how they managed to escape to Syria. The Baltimore Sun (“Drone kills al-Qaeda leader,” July 21) similarly detailed that not only was Fadhli “head of the network’s [Al-Qaeda] operations in Iran” but that the word “Khorasan”—a Persian word—is the name of an 8th century province in “an early Islamic caliphate that spanned what is now northern Iran and part of Afghanistan.”

Yet, other publications did not note the terrorist’s Iranian connection at all when providing an overview of his background.

Reporting Fadhli’s history as being among the “few trusted” senior al-Qaeda leaders who were given advance notice of the 9/11 terror attacks, The Los Angeles Times (“U.S. strike kills Al Qaeda ‘facilitator’; drone over Syria hits the leader of the Khorasan Group,” July 22) failed to mention Fadhli’s Iran tie. The Washington Post (“Airstrike killed a senior al-Qaeda figure in Syria, Pentagon says,” July 22, 2015) similarly omitted the role of Iran in allowing a base for the al-Qaeda leader and his compatriots.

Reporting the death of a terrorist leader—particularly one mentioned by name in a 2005 speech by President George W. Bush in Brussels—is newsworthy. However, with the debate surrounding the nuclear deal with Iran and the Islamic Republic’s role as a leading state sponsor of terrorism, readers of The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times would perhaps have been better served by more detailed coverage noting the deceased al-Qaeda leaders’ time in Iran.

Where’s the coverage? —Sean Durns

Major news media outlets offered extensive coverage of U.S.-led nuclear negotiations over Iran’s purported nuclear program leading to a signed “deal” on July 14, 2015. Yet, references to an earlier Iranian “negotiation” almost 26 years to that date and in the very same city were largely overlooked.

While the ultimate result of the nuclear talks lies in the future, Iran made its modus operandi clear on July 13, 1989. That’s when agents of the Islamic Republic murdered three Kurdish government officials with whom they were meeting in the Austrian capital.

Writing at Commentary magazine’s Contentions blog (“Iran and the Murder in Vienna,” July 13, 2015), American Enterprise Institute scholar Michael Rubin notes that summer “was a time of hope.” Many “Iran watchers” predicted a more moderate Islamic Republic following the recent death of the regime’s founder Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomenei and the forthcoming ascension of the supposed “moderate” and “pragmatist” Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani to the Iranian presidency. After the devastation wrought by the eight-year long Iran-Iraq War, “most Western diplomats,” Rubin observes, “assessed that the Islamic Republic would focus on rebuilding itself” and turn away from the mass-murder, hostage-taking, and torture that had characterized the regime’s actions since its founding in 1979.

The futility of such hopes were made apparent when Iranian negotiators assassinated their three Kurdish counterparts. The latter were the head of the Kurdish Democratic Party (KDPI) in Iran, Abdol-Rahman Gassemlou; the KDPI representative in Europe; and an interpreter. The echoes of gunfire in the Viennese apartment building brought police to the scene—whereupon they promptly released the Iranian delegation of Iranian Kordestan Governor Mostafa Ajoudi, Amir Bozorgian, and Mohammad Ja’fari Sahraroudi. The trio went free under the condition that they make themselves available for further questioning.

Instead the delegation broke its word and returned to Iran. For his work in killing those deemed enemies by the theocratic regime, Sahraroudi was promoted to head of intelligence for the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp’s elite Quds [Jerusalem] Force—listed by the United States as a terrorist organization.

As Rubin notes: “The promotion — as well as the senior level of the Iranian delegation — showed that the assassination was no rogue operation. It was not locally conceived, but rather likely was directed from the top.”

Near the top of the regime at the time was the then-head of the Supreme National Security Council, Hassan Rouhani. Rouhani, often described in Western media as a “moderate” or “pragmatist”—words with different meanings—was elected president of the Islamic Republic in 2013. This after he was first vetted and approved by Tehran’s Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who had succeeded Khomeini.

Subsequent investigation by Austrian officials concluded that the shooting of the Kurdish officials was a planned hit, not a parlay gone awry and warrants were issued for the arrest of the three members of the Iranian delegation. Tehran, having already completed its objective in the negotiations, refused to extradite the trio.

The more things change the more they may well remain the same. This July 18, Khamenei gave a speech in which he promised the Iranian people that the nuclear agreement would not change Iranian policy towards “the arrogant U.S. government” or the regime’s support for international terrorist groups and Shiite militias whose documented atrocities are fueling ISIS recruitment:

“The Islamic Republic of Iran will not give up support of its friends in the region–the oppressed people of Palestine, of Yemen, the Syrian and Iraqi governments, the oppressed people of Bahrain and sincere resistance fighters [such as U.S.-listed terror groups Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and Hamas] in Lebanon and Palestine.”

Such global aggression is in keeping with Khamenei’s 26-year rule. It was July 18, 1994 when Hezbollah—in league with its Iranian sponsors—bombed the Asociacion Mutual Israelita Argentina (AMIA) building in Argentina, killing 85. Alberto Nisman, the Argentinean prosecutor investigating the crime and who reportedly had proof of involvement between Iran and Argentina, was found dead in mysterious circumstances on Jan. 18, 2015.

By the manner in which the mullahs celebrate anniversaries, we may have a glimpse into their future behavior.
For more on Iran’s assassination of Kurdish officials in Vienna, Michael Rubin’s article can be found here.—Sean Durns