September 12, 2014 | National Review Online

No Time to Forget Iran’s Terrorism

To confront America’s enemies, the Obama administration needs to relentlessly confront al-Qaeda, the Islamic State, and the most potent sponsor of state-sponsored terrorism: the Islamic Republic of Iran.

It is worth recalling that prior to September 11, 2001, Iran’s terror apparatus, which includes Syria and Hezbollah, was responsible for the deaths of more Americans than any other terrorist entity.​

Writing over at the Lebanese news outlet NOW, Hanin Ghaddar makes a compelling case against an alliance with Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah in her articletitled “To prevent a new ISIS, stop Iran” with the subtitle “The US should fight ISIS, but without ignoring Iran’s role in Syria.”

Ghaddar’s pressing point is that one cannot decouple Iran/Hezbollah/Syria from the Islamic State.

Obama’s strategy to launch attacks against the Islamic State proves part of the maxim true: War can kill all things except bad ideas. While it is a prudent move to dismantle the Islamic State, Obama appears to be flirting with a kind of silent alliance with Iran and its strategic partner, the Lebanese terrorist organization Hezbollah.

As my Foundation for Defense of Democracies colleague Bill Roggio wrote:

The US air campaign to help Iraqi and Kurdish forces break the Islamic State’s siege of Amerli benefited the Hezbollah Brigades, a Shia militia that is supported by Iran and is listed by the US government as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist group. The Hezbollah Brigades is the second Shia militia involved in killing US soldiers to have taken advantage of US airpower to gain territory.

In 2007, the Hezbollah member Ali Mussa Daqduq played a crucial role in the murders of five American soldiers in Iraq. Iraq’s pro-Iran government in 2012 released Daqduq over the objections of the Obama administration. He is now in Lebanon. Moreover, Hezbollah was responsible for the killing of 241 U.S. Marines in Beirut in 1983.

All of this helps to explain the disturbing neglect by the Obama administration toward the terror of Hezbollah and its Iranian sponsor.

Iran’s war against the U.S. continues unabated since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Iran’s regime currently holds at least four Americans in their penitentiaries for such “crimes” as being a Christian and working as a news reporter for theWashington Post.

With Iran’s drive to become a nuclear-weapons power — and Obama’s limping from behind strategy to stop the Shi’ite Islamic Republic — the Sunni Islamic State might actually look like a junior-varsity squad compared to a nuclear-armed Iran.

— Benjamin Weinthal is a Berlin-based fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Follow Benajmin on Twitter @BenWeinthal

 

 

Issues:

Al Qaeda Iran