Iran Responds to Arrest Warrants for 1994 Bombing of Buenos Aires Jewish Center by Summoning Accusers to Teheran Court

On July 18, 1994, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, an explosives-laden van detonated outside the Jewish Community Center, leveling the seven-story building, killing 85 people and injuring some 200 more. No one has ever been brought to justice for this bombing.

Argentine prosecutors have long contended that the bombing plot was hatched at a 1993 meeting in Mashad, Iran, between representatives of the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards (recently added to the U.S. State Department's list of terrorist organizations) and the Lebanese-based terrorist group Hezbollah. As reported in the Telegraph.co.uk yesterday, the current Argentine prosecutor on the case has issued six arrest warrants, naming five top Tehran officials and Lebanese Hezbollah Lebanese operative Imad Moughnieh, one of the world's most notorious terrorists.

The most prominent Iranian official named in the warrants is Ahmad Vahidi, who is Iran's deputy defense minister, a brigadier-general in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, and in charge of the Iranian regime's defense procurement and rocket and missile programme. At the time of the bombing, the deadliest attack on a Jewish target since the Second World War, General Vahidi was the commander of the Quds (Jerusalem) Force, the Guards' international operations wing, accused by the West of organising foreign terrorist activities. Others named includeAli Fallahian, the former intelligence minister who is now a senior security advisor to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and Mohsen Rezai, then commander-in-chief of the Revolutionary Guards.

Based on the beefed-up case presented to Interpol, the international police coordinating agency, on November 7 Interpol added the names of the six men coverd by the Argentine arrest warrants to its most-wanted list, over furious Iranian objections. Teheran's envoys mounted a fierce defence ahead of Interpol's general assembly in Morocco last week, accusing Israel and the US of trying to hijack its operations to harm Iran's image. International delegates rejected their arguments, voting by 76 to 14 to issue the "red notices" after a heated closed-door session. Such notices are circulated by Interpol to member countries naming individuals wanted for extradition and seeking the assistance of national police forces.

Now the mullahs' regime has apparently decided that the best defense is a good offense. According to the Associated Press, Iran has summoned five Argentine nationals to appear in court over accusations by Teheran that they orchestrated a scenario to implicate Iran in the 1994 terrorist bombing. The five Argentines summoned by Iran include Argentina's former Interior Minister Carlos Corach; president of the Buenos Aires Jewish Jewish Community Center Ruben Beraja; Judge Juan Jose Galeano; prosecutor Eamon Mullen and a fifth man, identified only as Jose Barbaccia. Iranian Deputy Prosecutor General, Yadollah Alizadeh said that the five should report to the Teheran Justice Department, but gave no timing. If they fail to do so, Iran will demand Interpol issue international arrest warrants for them, he was quoted as saying.

Edwards Calls Iranian Revolutionary Guard a "Military Unit," Not a Terrorist Group!

During Monday's Democratic Presidential Candidate Debate, John Edwards sharply attacked Senator Hillary Clinton for her Senate vote in favor of designating the Iranian Revolutionary Guard as a terrorist group. Edwards claimed that attaching the label of "terrorist group" to a "military unit" (his words) amounted to a declaration of war against Iran.

The Iranian Revolutionary Guard certainly is a military unit, among other things. It also functions as a religious and political police force, brutally suppressing political opposition to the mullahs' authoritarian regime.

And neither of those functions excludes another role of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard--as a terrorist organization. A photo of some of its handiwork appears above. As noted on this website, Argentina has indicted leaders of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard for the planning and execution of the July 18, 1994 bombing of the Jewish Community Center in Buenos Aires, which took the lives of 85 persons and injured some 200 others. Less than a month ago, on November 7, Interpol added the names of those Iranian Revolutionary Guard leaders to its most wanted list.

Does Edwards view the bombing of the Jewish Community Center to have been a legitimate military operation? If this "military unit" isn't a terrorist organization, what further outrage would it have to commit to become one? Mr. Edwards, I will not forget and I will not forgive your remarks.

Hezbollah in Venezuela--A Challenge to the Monroe Doctrine, and to Our Next President

Whether you spell it Hezbollah, Hizbollah, or Hizbullah, this story spells danger. The Los Angeles Times reports that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez continues to deepen his nations ties with Iran and with its the Lebanese Shiite terrorist group Hezbollah. The Times reports:

"A top expert in the war against terrorism, speaking with the Los Angeles Times, said that agents of Hizbullah and the Revolutionary Guard of Iran have formed a special force designed to kidnap Jewish businessmen in South America and smuggle them to Lebanon. He said that Venezuelan employees of the international airport in Caracas have already been recruited to provide information about Jewish tourists who arrive in the country."

"IranAir flights also feature in recent intelligence gathered by Western anti-terrorism officials. Agents of Iran's Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah have allegedly set up a special force to attempt to kidnap Jewish businesspeople in Latin America and spirit them away to Lebanon, according to the Western anti-terrorism official. Iranian and Hezbollah operatives traveling in and out of Venezuela have recruited Venezuelan informants working at the Caracas airport to gather intelligence on Jewish travelers as potential targets for abduction, the Western anti-terrorism official said."

This would not be the first time that Iran and Hezbollah have launched terrorist attacks at Jewish targets in South America. As previously reported on The Hedgehog Blog, Argentina and Interpol have issued arrest warrants for leaders of Hezbollah and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard for their role in the July 18, 1994 bombing of the Buenos Aires Jewish Community Center, which took 85 lives and injured 200 more.

The growing influence of a Iran, a foreign power hostile to the United States, in the Western Hemisphere is a challenge to the spirit of the Monroe Doctrine. Who is better able to lead the defense of America against this threat so close to our shores, Barack Obama, or John McCain?

Obama Administration Removes Iran, Hezbollah, from List of Terror Threats

Hey, everybody, there's great news. The Obama Administration has defeated terrorism in Iran and Lebanon. We know this because in the 2015 Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Communities, delivered by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper to the United States Senate in February, Iran and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah no longer appear as terrorist threats, for the first time in years. (The Times of Israel has the story, along with a link to a PDF file copy of the unclassified version of the intelligence report.)

What felicitous timing for the Obama Administration to announce this glorious victory!  Previously, one might have been concerned that President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry were enabling Iran to obtain nuclear weapons, which one might hesitate to do if Iran still promoted terrorism and sponsored a terrorist organization such as Hezbollah.  Now, however, there is no danger whatsoever, because Iran and Hezbollah are no longer terrorist threats.

Never mind that just this past January 18, Argentine prosecutor Alberto Nisman was found murdered in his home. His murder occurred only one day before he was scheduled to report to the Congress of Argentina on alleged collusion between Iran and the Argentine government in covering up the role of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard and Hezbollah in two terrorist bombings of Jewish targets in Buenos Aires: the 1992 car bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires, which killed 29 people and wounded more than 250 others; and the 1994 bombing of the Buenos Aires Jewish Community Center, which killed 87 people and injured at least 100 more.  One prominent theory is that Iran ordered Nisman's murder, but, hey, Iran would not do that, because it is not a terrorist threat.

Another serendipitous result of the removal of Iran and Hezbollah from the terrorist watch list:  the Obama Administration is increasingly cooperating with Iran and Hezbollah in the fight against ISIS in Iraq and Syria.  That might give some people--although probably only neocons--pause, if Iran and Hezbollah were still engaged in and promoting terrorism.  But they're not--look, they no longer appear on the list of terrorist threats in the Worldwide Threat Assessment!  Just don't tell that to Sunni Iraqis, who live in abject fear of massacre by the Shiite militias operating under the supervision of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.

Is Hezbollah still helping Syrian President Bashar Assad commit mass murder of his own citizens?  Sure, but just yesterday Secretary of State Kerry announced that he is willing to negotiate with Assad.  After all, the dude gave up his chemical weapons, and now uses only artillery, armored vehicles, small arms, and barrel bombs to do his bloodletting. Plus, most of his recent victims are fighters in Sunni militias (or civilians who hang out with them), which do appear as terrorist threats in the Worldwide Threat Assessment.  So Iran, Hezbollah and Assad are just doing God's work, so to speak

Does Hezbollah still call for the eradication of Israel, and is it busily stockpiling Iranian missiles along the Lebanese and Syrian borders with Israel, to prepare for carrying out that threat?  Well, sure, but look how friendly Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan appears in the photo above.  He's waving at us, for crying out loud!  In contrast, Israel's Prime Minister, as of today, is still that nasty Netanyahu fellow, of whom President Obama is not very fond.  And if Israelis don't elect a government more to President Obama's liking tomorrow, well, guess what country may make its featured debut in the 2016 Worldwide Threat Assessment.
 

Obama Worries Joe the Plumber About Israel As Well As Taxes

Samuel J. Wurzebacher, aka "Joe the Plumber," apparently is not a one-issue voter. When a visitor from Florida at a GOP rally in Ohio told "Joe" that in his view, "a vote for Obama would be a vote for the death of Israel," Wurzebacher responded, "I'll go ahead and agree with you on that."

This did not please Fox News anchor Shepard Smith, who interviewed Wurzenbacher on air and tried to pin him down on why he thought that a vote for Obama was a vote for the death of Israel. Poor Joe the Plumber, who probably wishes in retrospect that he had never won overnight fame from his question on taxes to Obama, responded that he primarily was influenced by Obama's declared intention to meet with the leaders of Iran without preconditions. Wurzenbacher told Smith that he did not consider himself to be a foreign policy expert, whereupon Smith scolded him for the implications of his statement, implying to my ears that Wurzenbacher's rhetoric might cause a fervent supporter of Israel to commit violence to stop Obama's election. You can hear the entire exchange here, and judge for yourself.

There is no question that Smith made Wurzenbacher look bad on the air. Had he asked me, I would have said that saying a vote for Obama is a vote for the death of Israel is hyperbole, not the least because I believe the Holy One, Praised Be He, has his own plans for Israel, which not even Barack Obama can disrupt. However, I would have pointed out that friends of Israel certainly should be concerned about the following matters:

1. Obama's 20-year close relationship with the virulently anti-Zionist Reverend Jeremiah Wright, and his membership in Reverend Wright's church. This is a clergyman who has repeatedly attacked the Jewish State from the pulpit, characterizing its acts of self-defense as terrorism. Somehow Obama apparently missed those sermons. This is a church that printed guest editorials by Hamas leaders in its church bulletin.

2. Obama voted against a resolution in the Senate that would have declared Iran's Revolutionary Guard to be a terrorist organization. He has defended his vote by voicing the fear that such a declaration, designating a unit of Iran's "armed forces" to be a terrorist organization, might be interpreted by the George W. Bush Administration as Senate approval of an attack on Iran. However, Argentina and Interpol have indicted leaders and members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard for the 1994 bombing of the Buenos Aires Jewish Community Center, as reported here in November 2007, and Smith's own Fox News reported in October 2007 that the former head of Argentine intelligence had said that the order for the bombing came from the highest levels of the Iranian government.

3. Obama is advised on Middle East affairs and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by former U.S. envoy and negotiator Dennis Ross, and former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk, the same folks who brought you the Oslo Accords. These American Jews are well-meaning men who surely believe they have Israel's best interests at heart, and just as surely have supported policies and measures that have proven disastrous to Israel. At their feet one may reasonably lay partial responsibilty for the resurrection of Yassir Arafat and the PLO after its exile in Tunis; the Al Aksa Intifada; the withdrawal of Israel from Gaza; and the subsequent takeover of Gaza by Hamas. Currently they support territorial concessions that would place all of Israel within rocket and artillery range of Palestinian terrorists. Of course, they have like-minded colleagues in Israel, but that does not mitigate the danger their viewpoints pose.

4. According to Amir Taheri, writing in the New York Post, Reverend Jesse Jackson declared in a speech at the World Policy Forum in Evian, France that the election of Barack Obama would change American foreign policy by ending "decades of putting Israel's interests first," and that the "Zionists who have controlled American policy for decades" would use their clout. Gee, I wonder what he meant by that.

5. Then there is the close relationship of Senator Obama to virulent anti-Israel activists, such as Rashid Khalidi and former Weatherman terrorists Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, as discussed on this blog yesterday.

All-in-all, Mr. Smith, I believe that a pretty strong case can be made for the concern voiced by Joe the Plumber, even if he overdid it. Indeed, no less astute an observer than Caroline Glick, columnist for the Jerusalem Post and the senior fellow for Middle Eastern Affairs at Frank Gaffney's Center for Security Policy, told me and other Jewish bloggers, in an blogger interview sponsored by One Israel and reported on this blog here, "Any American Jew who votes for Obama is sticking a finger in the eye of the Jewish people." So Joe the Plumber may be right again.

The Emerging Anti-US Coalition: Venezuela, Cuba, Iran, North Korea

The Cold War was often rather hot; it included major armed conflicts in Korea, Vietnam, and the Middle East, as well as hundreds of brush wars fought worldwide by the proxies of the United States and the Soviet Union. The United States won the Cold War, the Soviet Union disintegrated, and one pundit prematurely pronounced the "end of history."

History has made a comeback with a vengeance. The main foe now in a new war against the U.S. and its Western allies is Islamic jihadism. The enemy controls Iran, it once controlled Afghanistan, it just took over Somalia, it threatens to take over Pakistan, Iraq and Lebanon, and its agents and proxies foment anti-Western violence across the world.

However, the Islamists are not above alliances with non-Islamic governments. The photo at left was taken in Iran during the visit last month of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Ahmadinejad awarded Chavez the “First Grade Medallion of Honour of the Islamic Republic of Iran” (which may be the blue ribbon and bow that Chavez is wearing in the photo at the left) for his "outstanding efforts against imperialism," the Iranian News Agency Fars reported. Chavez also met with Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

But Tehran was not the only stop on President Chavez's recent journey. Chavez's tour took him to Argentina, Belarus, Russia, Qatar, Iran, Vietnam, Mali and Benin. While in Iran, Chavez called the Israeli offensive in Lebanon a "fascist outrage."

Chavez is clearly engaged in building an anti-American coalition. It already includes Iran, North Korea, Cuba and Belarus. Russia and China are perched caustiously on the sidelines, maitaining a show of neutrality, but surreptitiously giving aid to the enemies of the U.S. France and much of Western Europe have reassumed the craven neutrality that chracterized those nations during the late stages of the Cold War. Great Britain, Australia, and Israel fully back the US.

As reported in the Jerusalem Post, today Chavez recalled the Venezuelan Ambassador to Israel, to show his "indignation" over the military offensive in Lebanon. "We have ordered the withdrawal of our ambassador in Israel," Chavez said in a televised speech, calling Israeli attacks in Lebanon "genocide."

Any one with clear eyesight can see who America's enemies are, and who are its allies.

World War III May Have Begun Last Week

Robert Tracinski, editor of The Intellectual Activist, in an article posted at Real Clear Politics, entitled "The War Comes to Us," convincingly argues that the conflict now raging in Gaza, Israel and Lebanon is in reality the opening salvos of a larger conflict between Iran and the United States for domination of the Middle East. He quotes David Twersky in the New York Sun, who echoes a suspicion that occurred to me as well--that the kidnapping of Israeli Corporal Gilad Shavit may turn out the be the modern equivalent of the assasination of Austrian Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, an event unexpectedly triggering a new world war. So far the conflict is a proxy war, pitting Hamas, Syria and Hezbollah, the proxies of Iran, against Israel, the proxy of the United States. However, the strategic geographic scope of the conflict is taking shape, and it is breathtaking. Tracinksi quotes Michael Ladeen, writing in the National Review:

"No one should have any lingering doubts about what's going on in the Middle East. It's war, and it now runs from Gaza into Israel, through Lebanon and thence to Iraq via Syria. There are different instruments, ranging from Hamas in Gaza to Hezbollah in Syria and Lebanon and on to the multifaceted "insurgency" in Iraq. But there is a common prime mover, and that is the Iranian mullahcracy."

This new world conflagration has the potential for other fronts opening as well. For example, Hezbollah already demonstrated its operational capabilities in Argentina (which has a sizeable Shiite Muslim community), with a 1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy and a 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center. Al Qaida is also known to have operational cells in South America. With the cooperation of anti-US leaders in Cuba and Venezuela, it is not unlikely that Hezbollah and Al Qaida, either separately or in cooperation with one another, may carry out attacks on US, Israeli or Jewish targets in Latin America.