(This article originally appeared in the American Spectator at https://spectator.org/event-tectonics-2021/)
In a March 2020 article for The American Spectator, “Event Tectonics: Quake, Shake, Bake & Fake,” I assessed the prospective impact — large — of COVID-19 and compared it in salience to prior events. Those events I divided into four categories:

1. Quake: a monster event that fundamentally transforms bedrock perceptions;
2. Shake: a major event that alters perceptions somewhat, but not enough to change underlying views;
3. Bake: an event that generates lots of heat but little light, leaving perceptions and underlying views intact; and
4. Fake: an event widely perceived as important that ultimately proves largely or entirely illusory.

I then put COVID-19 in the “Quake” category, and observed, “Perhaps above all, the largely optimistic bipartisan view of China as moving towards a freer, and thus friendlier, society will fall into history’s ash-heap.”

Heading the “Shake” category were the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. It seemed we had, at first, come together. But as the years dragged on without final victory, the country split asunder over detainee interrogation procedures, infiltration of Muslim terrorist groups, profiling at airports, and whether or not to try terror suspects in military or civilian tribunals.

For “Bake,” I flagged the Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign. While Sanders was seemingly a juggernaut headed for inevitable victory in the nomination battle, the belated entry of Joe Biden, who campaigned from the basement and held not a single genuine press event, won the day. (To be fair, Biden’s pull to the far Left seems to have been part of a deal under which Sanders sacrificed a long-shot presidential run for policy primacy should Biden win.)

For “Fake,” naturally I selected the Russia-collusion hoax that consumed the first two years of the Trump presidency. The hoax did lead to the first impeachment of the president, then an assured acquittal in the Senate trial.

With the above in mind, we may ask, What are 2021’s potentially tectonic events to date?

There are a plethora of domestic candidates:

(a) the Capitol Hill riot cum pseudo-insurrection, with new evidence that the FBI had penetrated the groups at the Capitol and went inside with them, and with the government sitting on 14,000 hours of unreleased video footage;

(b) Nancy’s Pelosi’s 24-hour snap impeachment of former President Trump, which lays the foundation for possible future partisan snap presidential impeachments;

(c) the open-borders immigration implosion, with video evidence of how the migrants are controlled by the cartels even when inside the U.S., including child prostitution;

(d) the shocking, steep rise in violent felonies, a massive urban crime wave created in large measure by defunding police, stripping police of protections against legal harassment — which led the entire Portland rapid response force to resign in protest — no-bail policies even for violent felons with a felony rap sheet, and an epic shoplifting epidemic in San Francisco due to enforcement lassitude and lenient laws on the books;

(e) a turbocharged green energy policy that closes down not only coal plants but also carbon-free natural gas facilities and pipelines — a 180-degree shift from Trump’s super-successful energy independence policies;

(f) an epic federal spending spree that revives prospects for 1970s-like hyperinflation;

(g) the use of domestic terror laws to target “white supremacists”; dissenters criticizing Muslims risk being tagged with the invented crime of “Islamophobia” while Palestinians attack Jews in LA — call it “Judoephobia”; and

(h) a social media–driven cancel culture coupled with Marxist school indoctrination from kindergarten through college and graduate schools. One response to cancel culture and Big Tech censorship is new publishers who will air all points of view.

And there are other domestic possibilities, lurking, so to speak, below the waterline, that could come to pass and would be tectonic:

(a) federal election “reform” that enshrines universal mail-in voting while eviscerating laws protecting ballot integrity and verifying voter identification — protection derided as “disinformation” by Attorney General Merrick Garland;

(b) legislating D.C. statehood despite its lack of constitutional warrant — the 23rd Amendment was adopted precisely because its supporters knew that statehood by statute was potentially reversible and thus settled for presentation in presidential elections, while sacrificing statehood;

(c) pushing Puerto Rico statehood after a rigged referendum event on the island produced a narrow margin in favor of statehood;

(d) a partisan commission designed to recommend legislation authorizing FDR-style Supreme Court packing; and

(e) abolishing the Electoral College.

The source of Garland’s derisory comment is the administration’s National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism (NSCDT), released June 15. The document is sprinkled with language declaring that civil liberties, privacy, and peaceful protest will be fully protected and malefactors who commit or induce violence will be prosecuted regardless of where they are on the spectrum from left to right. There is reason, however, to believe otherwise. The introduction identifies what it terms “violent ideological motivations.” It states “Among that wide range of animating ideologies, racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists (principally those who promote the superiority of the white race) and militia violent extremists are assessed as presenting the most persistent and lethal threats.” The NSCDT’s scope includes what it terms ”anti-government” and “anti-authority” violent extremists, but includes any “individual or group who engages in violence — or incites imminent violence — in opposition to legislative, regulatory or other actions taken by the government.”

Yet a look at the March 2021 Threat Assessment, incorporated into the NSCDT, cites these recent examples of what might promote violence by extremists: “Newer sociopolitical developments — such as narratives of fraud in the recent general election, the emboldening impact of the violent breach of the U.S. Capitol, conditions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and conspiracy theories.”

The federal government will partner with public and private entities, at home and abroad. Specifically included are the technology sector and academia.

The NSCDT goes on: “It means ensuring that Americans receive the type of civics education that promotes tolerance and respect for all and investing in policies and programs that foster civic engagement and inspire a shared commitment to American democracy.”

At the end, the NSCDT drops this grenade: “These efforts lead to a broader priority: enhancing faith in government and addressing the extreme polarization, fueled by a crisis of disinformation and misinformation often channeled through social media platforms, which can tear Americans apart and lead some to violence.”

Much in these NSCDT excerpts is belied by the discussion preceding this section and has links to show a pronounced targeting of right-leaning advocacy, the metastasizing cancel culture that silences views disdained by the administration and its allies in mainstream media, and in the technology, corporate, entertainment, and academic sectors. But the icing on the cake is the NSCDT’s “broader priority” of “enhancing faith in government.”

“Enhancing faith in government?” What of the Declaration of Independence’s proclamation of “certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”? What of the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, which begins, “We the People of the United States?” What of Article IX — “The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people” — and Article X — “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the People” — of the Bill of Rights?

Add to this two famous admonitions from Supreme Court Justices Oliver Wendell Holmes and Louis D. Brandeis.

Dissenting in a free speech case, Holmes wrote,

Every idea is an incitement. It offers itself for belief, and if believed it is acted on unless some other belief outweighs it or some failure of energy stifles the movement at its birth. The only difference between the expression of an opinion and an incitement is the speaker’s enthusiasm for the result.

Significantly, Holmes was defending the right of free speech in a case involving the 1919 conviction of a socialist and his co-conspirators for “criminal anarchy.” They had published a manifesto explicitly stating as their goal “to destroy the parliamentary state and construct a new state of the organized producers which will function as the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.” That final phrase was the precise formulation of Russia’s Marxist–Leninist 1917 revolutionaries.

In perhaps his most famous opinion during his 25 years on the Supreme Court, Brandeis, dissenting in a 1928 wiretapping case, wrote,

Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when government’s purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but with little understanding.

Turning to overseas matters, there are immense military challenges:

(a) China may go to war to end Taiwan’s de facto independence;

(b) Russia may drive deeper into Ukraine and/or invade the provinces of the three Baltic members of NATO; and

(c) Israel may strike preemptively to kill Iran’s nuclear weapons program, if the Jewish state that Iran calls “Little Satan” concludes that America is empowering Iran’s march towards joining the nuclear club.

Nor can we ignore possible upcoming election time-bombs if between now and the 2022 campaign, post-election audits definitively show, in one or more of the contested states, that Donald Trump was victim of outcome-altering vote fraud. The Arizona audit in Maricopa County is being conducted under the most stringent recount procedures ever, following the methods adopted by gambling casinos to detect sophisticated cheaters. Georgia is investigating 2020 “election irregularities” — in part due to a November 2020 memo by a contractor documenting “massive election integrity failures and mismanagement” in Atlanta’s heavily Democratic Fulton County. While such findings could not reverse the results of 2020, they would cast a huge pall over the administration and its allies in Congress, the media, and their cultural allies elsewhere.

Finally, there is a 2022 event that could prove most tectonic of all: the November 2022 federal elections. Should Democrats keep the House and gain control of the Senate, the administration would claim virtual carte blanche to remake America. If a tectonic event favored the GOP, the result could trigger a massive GOP sweep of House and Senate races. The administration would effectively be restricted to rule by executive order, a course that is likely to encounter stiff judicial headwinds in the federal courts, where 234 Trump appointees can apply legislative laws and associated administrative rules to prevent rule by serial executive diktat.

Bottom Line. Perhaps the best analogy to what we face over the next 18 months resembles a clip from a 1950 all-time Hollywood classic, All About Eve: “Fasten your seat belts; it’s going to be a bumpy night.” Alas, in our case, we are talking about some 560 such nights — and days — 80 weeks until the Congress elected in 2022 convenes in early January 2023.

John C. Wohlstetter is author of Sleepwalking With the Bomb (Discovery Institute Press, Second Edition, 2014).

(This article was originally published in Newsmax.com: https://www.newsmax.com/adellenazarian/ukraine-nuclear-airline-justice/2021/06/11/id/1024766/ )

The Islamic Republic of Iran’s (IRI) gruesome and likely intentional shooting down of a Ukrainian airliner with Canadian passengers on board on January 8, 2020, was recently condemned by Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice as a “shameful” act of terrorism.

Now, it is time for the Biden administration to do the same.

Ukraine Airlines commercial airliner Flight PS752, a Boeing 737-800 headed for Kyiv, Ukraine, was eliminated with two surface-to-air M-1 missiles shortly after it took off from Tehran Imam Khomeini International Airport by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC). All 176 people on board the flight perished.

Despite the IRI’s attempts to falsely claim that flight PS2752 was shot down accidentally – going so far as blaming the incident on “human error” and saying the IRGC’s missile system was not fully recalibrated — it is widely believed that this heinous act of terror was carried out intentionally and that the IRI targeted this flight specifically because they believed Americans may have been on board.

The evening the flight was shot down, the IRI had been in the process of firing over a dozen missiles at two U.S. bases in Iraq in retaliation for the Trump administration’s assassination of IRGC-Quds Forces Major-General Qassem Soleimani.

The IRI likely thought the flight would make a great target for retaliation. Their attempts to get away with this act of terroristic murder has failed in the court of public opinion.

Now, an actual court has stood up to create a ruling on the case. Late last month, Ontario Superior Court Justice Edward Belobaba ruled that , “[t]he plaintiffs have established that the shooting down of Flight 752 by the defendants was an act of terrorism and constitutes ‘terrorist activity.” Belobaba added, “I find on a balance of probabilities that the missile attacks on Flight 752 were intentional and directly caused the deaths of all onboard.”

Iran Ministry Spokesperson Saeed Khatibzadeh said the Ontario Superior Court of Justice’s ruling that the IRI’s act constituted an act of terror was “shameful” and lacked evidence. “Everyone knows that the Canadian court is fundamentally not qualified to judge this aviation accident or potential negligence in an incident that is outside the territory and jurisdiction of Canada,” Khatibzadeh said. This response from the IRI is par for the course as any condemnation of the IRI or decision which does not advance their nefarious aims is condemned and dismissed as illegitimate or flawed.

The Iranian Americans for Liberty (IAL) — a U.S.-based advocacy group committed to strengthening and supporting “U.S. foreign policy and national security solutions that bring democracy, human rights accountability, and freedom of speech to Iranians living under the oppressive, totalitarian Islamic Republic Regime in Iran — issued a statement in support of the Canadian court’s decision and also called “on President Biden to publicly support Canada’s court decision and to cease and desist all discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran until they take responsibility for murdering 176 souls.”

Several human rights agencies also condemned the IRI for this blatant act of terror. Two independent experts appointed by the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council said on February 23, 2020 that Iran committed multiple human rights violations in shooting downing UIA Flight PS752.

However, and as expected, no formal action was taken against the IRI.

In fact, this April, the UN went so far as to appoint – through a secret ballot – the IRI to a four-year term on its Commission on the Status of Women, the “principal global intergovernmental body exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women.” Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva-based human rights group UN Watch, put it perfectly when he said “electing the Islamic Republic of Iran to protect women’s rights is like making an arsonist into the town fire chief.”

Similarly, allowing the IRI to get away with this heinous and intentional act of terrorism will only continue to enable the regime and its backers to undermine U.S. and international security. It is crucial that the Biden administration take swift action against the IRI for this crime against humanity and hold the IRI accountable for its malfeasance.

It’s important for President Biden to rethink the pending re-entry into the severely flawed Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or Iran nuclear deal.

Rewarding the IRI for its endless acts of terror by rejoining this contract will only further embolden the mullahs in the country to continue their bad behavior.

Otherwise, the rumors that this is Barack Obama’s third term might actually stick.

Adelle Nazarian is a senior media fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy and a communications director for several non-government organizations.

PR Contact: Shana Forta
Email: Sforta@Goldiis.org

Washington, DC — June 16, 2021 — The Gold Institute for International Strategy is pleased to welcome Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East Simone Ledeen and retired NYPD Detective Investigator Mark Black as senior fellows. Ms. Ledeen’s extensive experience in the Middle East, at DoD and Treasury and Marc Black’s long-time focus in counter-terrorism, intelligence division and computer crimes will undoubtedly add greatly to the Institute’s impressive roster of fellows as well as our work and influence globally.

Simone Ledeen is a strategic influencer of complex, long-term initiatives and plans with global impact. Through her work, Ms. Ledeen has shaped the thinking of the nation’s senior-most leaders, including Members of Congress, other U.S. government officials, and partners abroad, on matters of defense, finance, telecom, and transportation. She is a trusted collaborator leveraging vast networks and superb communication skills to achieve multi-phased program development and implementation across industries.

Ms. Ledeen has served in various U.S. Government and business leadership positions, most recently as the presidentially-appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (DASD) for Middle East Policy where her leadership of U.S. defense policy spanned Bahrain, Egypt, Israel, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Palestinian Authority, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab Emirates and Yemen. Her experience on multiple oversees deployments influenced key counterterrorism activities, intelligence collection and analysis, as well as military information support operations involving cyber and disinformation, irregular warfare, direct action, sensitive special operations, and personnel recovery/hostage issues.

Ms. Ledeen’s work has also been shaped by her 20 years of experience prior to appointment with the Department of Defense. She draws on her work as Executive Director at Standard Chartered Bank managing multi-national financial crime compliance; Senior U.S. Treasury Representative to NATO’s International Security Assistance Force; Advisor to the Iraqi Ministry of Finance; and as a member of the Coalition Provisional Authority.

She is also a Visiting Fellow at the National Security Institute of George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia School of Law where she advocates to foster global security and facilitate international business. Ms. Ledeen has an MBA from the Bocconi University School of Management and a Bachelor of Arts degree with from Brandeis University. With a strong intercultural competency having lived several years abroad, she is fluent in Italian and conversational in French, Arabic, Polish, and Hebrew.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Marc Black served 20 years with the New York Police Department (NYPD), retiring June 2020 at the rank of Detective Investigator. His assignments included:

Counterterrorism Division

Responsible for conducting security and vulnerability assessments (SAVA) and threat assessments on critical infrastructure in New York City. Areas of concentration include houses of worship, utilities, and sports/entertainment venues. Liaison with the Fire Department of New York City Explosives Unit to establish secure logistic routes and venue security of locations which utilize energetic materials. Intermediary with Federal agencies which are working with foreign-friendly nations to establish counterterrorism programs for local law enforcement. Evaluator for the federal Nonprofit Security Grant Program (NSGP) in New York City.

Arson & Explosion Squad

Investigated major post blast and arson crimes associated with fire and blast fatalities in conjunction with the New York City Fire Department and federal and state law enforcement agencies to determine origin and cause. Examined post blast incidents caused by improvised explosive devices as well as explosive materials illegally obtained by individuals and criminal organizations. Investigated arsons and incendiary incidents to determine origin and cause.

Computer Crimes Squad

Investigated computer crimes and analyzed computer forensic information using accepted law enforcement techniques and technologies. Investigations: Computer intrusions/DOS/computer trespass, identity fraud, child exploitation, Internet scams, and financial crimes.

Intelligence Division

Synchronized communications of international terrorist incidents with New York City Police investigators Overseas Liaison Units. Coordinated crisis management programs through the Fusion Center with the New York City Police Department and federal law enforcement agencies, FEMA, U.S. Military, and Office of Emergency Management (New York City).

Education:

B.S. Business Management, Keene State College

Attended University of Haifa, Haifa Israel

M.S. Transportation Management, NY State University Maritime College

M.S. Security Protection, John Jay College of Criminal Justice

(This article first appeared in Brussels Morning: https://brusselsmorning.com/2021/06/14/time-to-examine-ursula-von-der-leyens-performance/)

Brussels (Brussels Morning) ‘Sofagate’ now seems a distant memory. A few weeks later, however, now that the dust has settled, it is very important to reflect long and hard on the issues raised and on the many lessons to be learned in parliament from this diplomatic spat.

Ms von der Leyen indicated that, during her visit to Ankara, she had felt ‘hurt’ and ‘abandoned’ and accused Turkish President Erdoğan of subjecting her to sexist treatment by failing to provide a chair for her as he had for Charles Michel.

I have to admit that, when I rose to speak during the European Parliament debate on this matter, I did not actually concern myself with the reasons for which no chair had been provided for the President of the Commission, or why her staff had failed to anticipate such a situation. I have to say that the obsession with such an issue appeared inappropriate, to say the least, at a time when our citizens were in the throes of the COVID-19 crisis that has been driving so many small businesses to the edge of bankruptcy and creating widespread mental anguish, especially among the young. I did, however, take advantage of her presence to raise the question of her failure to ensure the purchase of vaccines, as a result of which the COVID pandemic has lasted far longer in the EU than in the United Kingdom, Israel or the United States.

To my astonishment, I found myself practically alone, since my fellow MEPs were too busy falling over themselves to excoriate President Michel and President Erdoğan for their treatment of the Commission President in Turkey. They failed to utter a single word about her mistakes in handling the COVID crisis or to take advantage of this ideal opportunity to address the vaccine purchase fiasco while she was actually in the room. Instead, Parliament simply handed her a free pass. She left the Chamber as she entered it, unbloodied and unbowed. ‘Mission accomplished’, she must have thought to herself. Turkish musical chairs had carried the day and obsession with EU prestige had outweighed any concerns about the well-being of millions of European citizens. The failures of Ms von der Leyen were matched by the failure of many of my colleagues to rise to the occasion that day.

It speaks volumes that she has presented herself as a victim at a time when so many EU citizens are beset by the fallout from the COVID-19 crisis. Only weak leaders have recourse to such tactics.

Frankly, the reasons for which Ms von der Leyen was appointed to the top post in the EU executive have always been something of a mystery to me. There is no doubt that Germany, was happy enough to be rid of her, in view of her record as German Defence Minister and the shambles she left behind her in the Bundeswehr. Firstly, it found itself short of the necessary manpower and equipment to perform its tasks properly. Secondly, her term of office was dogged by constant issues of probity, culminating in a bill presented to the German taxpayer for repairs to the ‘Gorch Fock’ German Navy tall ship, the original estimate of just EUR 10 million having swelled to EUR 135 million. Only in politics is such failure rewarded by promotion to a top job.

On 31 August 2020, she announced the Commission’s intention of launching a vaccine procurement programme. That was her chance to show that a European approach to complex issues has only advantages. As things turned out, however, we now find ourselves shouldering the consequences of failure to roll out a rapid European vaccination campaign. What is more, the buck does not stop with Ms von der Leyen. It is the pharmaceutical companies that are taking the blame. Playing the Sofagate victim card was therefore just one more example of her distorted view of what leadership actually entails.

My fellow members are also to blame for letting slip the opportunity that presented itself on 26 April to call her to account for the vaccine chaos. I am frankly disappointed in them. I could not care less about the reasons for which no chair was provided for Ms von der Leyen and am not losing a single night’s sleep about the impact this is having on the EU’s international prestige. I just hope that her attitude since the incident in question will have opened a few more eyes to the fact that she is the wrong woman in the wrong place. If so, at least the Sofagate affair will have served some purpose after all.

By: Adelle Nazarian, Media Fellow and Dr. Seyed Hossein Lotfizadeh

An impressive array of congressional letters have been pulling the Biden administration in opposite directions regarding the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (“Iran deal” for short) negotiated under former President Barack Obama over a span of days. While the heated atmosphere is a clear indication of the perils of whatever path the Biden administration opts to pursue, one would hope that cooler heads prevail at end of the day given the stakes.

This won’t be possible, however, without a closer look at the fine print of the deal which includes important but often overlooked provisions of the accord that are expected to make the world a far less safe place based on the bad actors it helps.

Case in point: in February 2021, the death (from SARS-CoV-2) of an obscure yet shady and sinister character became a reminder of the dangers that a point-by-point implementation of the accords would entail. It is no exaggeration to point out that such unforeseen risks could overshadow concerns about nuclear proliferation.

We are talking about a convicted terrorist that, despite committing double murder on allied European soil, served but a few years, and thanks to the nuclear deal, could have had the chance to carry out his crimes again. The issue is, a re-entry into this deal will provide the opportunity for others like him to assassinate targets of the Iranian regime.

A 2015 piece in the Wall Street Journal bemoaned the fact that, under the deal, there would be “nefarious characters whose names would be removed under the deal from Western sanctions lists.”

The person referred to here was a Lebanese national named Anis Naccache (alternatively al-Naqqash). A moment of reflection over the life “achievements” of Naccache suffices to show how dangerous this would be.

A eulogy of Naccache published in Iran’s state-run outlet Tehran Times is illuminating: Allegedly, before Iran’s 1979 Islamization, Naccache “was a fighter in the front ranks of the Palestinian resistance in Lebanon and one of the most prominent security and military figures in it,” and “he participated in military operations outside Lebanon for the sake of the Palestinian cause.”

Reality is not so romantic.

In December 1975, a team of six assailants raided the meeting of OPEC oil ministers in Vienna, Austria. A massive hostage crisis followed, which resulted in several deaths and over 60 captives. The “glorious” operation was led by one of most notorious terrorists of the day, the Venezuelan Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, aka “Carlos the Jackal” (who, not incidentally, bore the name of the leader of Russia’s 1917 Bolshevik revolution). Naccache was one of the participants.

Raised as a Sunni Muslim, Naccache converted to Shia Islam later in life, and became a fan of Iran’s version of Shia Islamism. Given his impressive resume as a terrorist, his attraction to the newly founded Islamic Republic in Iran would come as no surprise. Once on board, however, he went out of his way to please his new masters.

In 1980, Naccache was captured after he tried to assassinate Shapur Bakhtiar; Iran’s secular leader toppled by Islamists. During the attempt, he killed two French citizens and permanently disabled a third, a police officer.

It’s worthy to note that a large number of dissidents against the regime of Iran, with a broad range of ideologies and political affiliations, were assassinated in Europe in the 1980s and 1990s, and this played no small part in browbeating many millions of Iranian expats into silence. The regime, however, never took responsibility for the killings, always blaming them on “infighting” among dissident groups.

One might wonder why such “infighting” among Iranians would be of interest to a Lebanese with a long history of involvement in terrorism.

In Naccache’s case, the motives were quite clear, as was the fact that the regime came out fully in his defense. While demands for his release would likely not get very far on their own, the kidnapping of several French citizens in the Middle East by pro-Iran groups and the desire to secure their freedom would be a different matter.

Hostage taking has become a standard practice for the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI). Naccache was pardoned by France’s socialist leader François Mitterrand in 1990 and immediately took a flight to Iran.

Neither French nor Iranian officials ever admitted this was a “prisoner exchange”; quite similar to America’s refusal to admit that the “pallets of cash” it sent to Iran in 2016 as Americans were set free in what was clearly seen as a quid pro quo exchange.

Yet the temporal coincidence between the release of Naccache and the French hostages is an undeniable reality. And even in France, it is not so common for convicted murderers to be release after in a mere 10 years.

Shortly thereafter, Naccache’s would be victim, Shapur Bakhtiar, was “successfully” assassinated. The assassins were surely aware that even if caught, their punishment would barely be more than a mere slap on the wrist, and in fact, they were freed after less than 20 years behind bars in another prisoner swap.

Upon his release, Naccache became a “business man,” but never gave up his involvement with terrorism. While the Sunni al-Qaeda and Shia Islamic Republic of Iran may seem like strange bedfellows, they have been alleged to join forces and cooperate covertly — often by proxy — on certain projects against their common enemy: America and the West.

As the 2015 Wall Street Journal piece pointed out, “[I]n 2008 the European Union determined that Mr. Naccache was linked to Iran’s nuclear-proliferation activities…Brussels added him to a sanctions list due to his alleged role in Iran’s nuclear program, not his terrorist past.”

And yet, he would “be removed from the EU sanctions list under the nuclear deal,” as would “numerous other Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps leaders responsible for the deaths of many Iranian dissidents, U.S. servicemen in Iraq and civilians in Syria and elsewhere.”

Upon Naccache’s death – by none other than the coronavirus –, Syria’s genocidal dictator Bashar al-Assad sent the following message: “We offer…all…freedom-fighters the sincerest condolence.” Some “freedom-fighting the attempt on Bakhtiar’s life was.

Eulogies for Naccache also identified him as a “comrade” of Imad Mughniyeh, another shadowy figure linked to the attack on the US embassy in Beirut in 1983 that left 67 dead, the truck bombings against French paratroopers and US Marine barracks resulting in deaths of 60 French and 240 American service personnel, and numerous other acts of murder, torture, hijacking and kidnapping.

It would be tempting to have a “let bygones be bygones” attitude and not allow incidents from the 1980s and 1990s get in the way of 2021’s priorities, particularly as it pertains to an issue as important as the nuclear deal.

Unfortunately, while we may be willing to assign extraterritorial acts of terrorism by the regime of Iran to the history books, the IRI itself has no such intention.

As recent as February 2021, a court in Belgium found a Vienna based agent for the Iranian regime guilty of trying to bomb a meeting of an Iranian opposition group in France in 2018. That the mentioned agent was using his diplomatic status as cover only further demonstrates that such brazen acts of murder and intimidation are not just a matter of the past, but very much in the present.

Rejoining the deal as it was first negotiated would make the world a less safe place. Such security concerns are among the reasons European nations, having in the past criticized the US for withdrawing unilaterally from the deal, are now cognizant that negotiations to revive the deal need to extend to hitherto untouched subjects and simple readhesion would be unwise.

After all, such acts by the IRI pose a greater threat to French, British and German citizens than they do to their American counterparts.

Dr. Seyed Hossein Lotfizadeh, (Hos Loftus, MD), is an Iranian-born American physician trained in the field of neurology at Boston University, followed by several extra subspecialty years of training at various institutions in different states.

Adelle Nazarian is a senior media fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy and a communications director for several non-government organizations.

A D-Day remembrance by Senior Fellow John C. Wohlstetter as told to him by his ancestor, William Friedman, plus his own pilgrimage to the beaches of Normandy. (This article first appeared in the American Spectator magazine May 28, 2018)

The week of May 8 to 15 closed a chapter in my life whose first pages were written in France before I made my 1947 debut, in New York City. My father’s first cousin, William Friedman, authored those pages by deed. Bill enlisted in the Army in 1938 and made the first of his three first-day World War II landings Nov. 8, 1942, in Oran, Algeria, with the First Division, whose storied nickname was the Big Red One. The North African campaign cost Bill the top joint on the middle finger of his right hand. On July 1, 1943 Bill and his comrades landed in Sicily. Bill was transferred to the Tenth Mountain Division for the winter of 1944, and then returned to the Big Red One, to prepare for the invasion of Normandy.

Like most veterans Bill rarely spoke of his war days. He opened up to me a few times, once showing me letters he had written from France in 1944; then 27, he wrote that he did not expect to see 28. Bill first told his D-Day story to me around the time he attended the 40thanniversary commemoration at which President Reagan gave his legendary speech (14:25) about the men of Pointe du Hoc, the 225 Army Rangers who scaled the 300-foot high sheer cliff overlooking Omaha Beach in search of German artillery pieces. Starting with 250 in the boats, the Rangers ended the ferocious battle with 90 able to fight. But they did get the guns — not on the cliff summit, where none but dummy guns stood, but half a mile inland; the Rangers used thermite grenades to melt the barrel interiors and then smashed the gun-sights with the butt of their rifles. Mission accomplished.

But it was ten years later, when Bill co-represented the Big Red One at the 50thanniversary celebration, and greeted President Clinton, that he told more of his story. Bill recalled the interminable voyage across the stormy English Channel; he stood in the third row of his landing craft. As they approached the drop-off point in heavy seas the soldiers could hear the clatter of machine-gun bullets slamming into the prow of the ship. His regiment (the 16th) landed at Easy Red sector, the most heavily defended area, along with the neighboring Dog Green sector, of the beach that was to become known as “Bloody Omaha.” The First was chosen for this location because it was America’s most battle-hardened division.

Bill was interviewed for several TV specials. And then he sat down for interviews with soldier-author Tim Kilvert-Jones, writing the foreword for TK-J’s 1999 book, Omaha Beach: V Corps’ Battle for the Normandy Beachhead.

I am standing on Omaha Beach, May 14, 2018, holding open the Kilvert-Jones book, showing Bill’s Foreword to my fellow tourists. The photo at left is of Captain Friedman, 1943. The photo at right shows Colonel Friedman (USA, ret.) greeting President Clinton at 1994’s 50thanniversary D-Day celebration. Bill is second from right.