Terrorism: A Warning from Iran to Europe

by Richard Kemp • December 8, 2020 at 5:00 am

Now they [the Europeans] find themselves locked into what they know is a phoney and highly dangerous nuclear agreement that simply consigns confrontation with a nuclear-armed Iran to future generations.
They [the Iranian leadership] look at Europeans, as well as Americans, with contempt, as weak and decadent, lacking the courage or resolve to stick up for their own interests.... President Trump gave them pause for thought, especially when he ordered the death of Qasem Soleimani.... They have higher hopes of Biden, whom they expect to be more supine.
We can be sure the Supreme Leader has rejoiced at the results of his message: cowering in Europe, with only weak and token response, accompanied by a desperate, pleading assurance that the targets of his aggression are still his friends. If ever there was a lesson that appeasement fails and strength succeeds, surely this is it.
European governments must now show their own strength or face continued Iranian coercion -- coercion that will be witnessed by malign actors around the world from Moscow to Beijing to Pyongyang, with obvious implications.
Can the Europeans really afford to allow such an egregiously hostile and manipulative regime as Tehran to acquire nuclear weapons?

Last month the trial began in Belgium of Assadolah Assadi and three other Iranians accused of plotting to bomb a "Free Iran" rally in Paris, in June 2018. The rally was attended by 80,000 people, including former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, President Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani and several British and European members of parliament. The failed plot was reportedly ordered by Iranian President Hassan Rouhani and approved by Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. (Photo by Zakaria Abdelkafi/AFP via Getty Images)

Last month the trial began in Belgium of Assadolah Assadi and three other Iranians accused of planning a bomb attack in Paris in 2018. Since 2015 Assadi had been the most senior officer of Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security in Europe, at the time operating under diplomatic cover at the Iranian embassy in Vienna. He is the first Iranian government official to be tried by an EU country for terrorist offences, despite numerous attack attempts on EU soil ordered by Tehran.

State supported terrorism is not just an act in itself but also an instrument of national power and coercion. Together, these plots were a malevolent message and clear threat to Europe that unfortunately have been received and acted upon as intended in London, Berlin, Paris and Brussels.

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Turkey: Legitimizing Extremist Violence

by Burak Bekdil • December 8, 2020 at 4:00 am

Then there is the Turkish Hezbollah, a Sunni violent organization that aims to found a Kurdish-Islamic state based on sharia. Although the Turkish Hezbollah is not to be confused with the Lebanese Hezbollah, it too has links with the Shia regime in Iran.
Journalist Ismail Saymaz detailed in his column how the former Turkish Hezbollah, now the Free Cause Party (Hüda-Par), has infiltrated into scores of schools in Diyarbakır for wider future influence in the Kurdish provinces.... Saymaz says the Free Cause network has spread around Turkey so successfully that the movement now runs a television station and publishes a daily newspaper.
With democratic voting since 2002, Turkey has evolved from a secular state that had strong institutional bonds with the West to a religious, fundamentalist state hostile to the Western civilization and Israel. The next two decades may see even Turkey's non-violent religious institutions evolving into violent ones.

A Turkish court has censored news reports about a visit by Defense Minister Hulusi Akar (pictured at left) to the grave of a convicted terrorist who was the founder of an illegal Islamist group, the Great Eastern Islamic Raiders' Front (IBDA-C). (Photo by Adem Altan/AFP via Getty Images)

In its early years (2002-2010), many Western leaders generously hailed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's governance with biased euphemisms such as "post-modern Islamism" or "moderate Islamism." In this view, Turkish Islamism and Erdoğan deserved every support Western nations could give. Turkey would be the role model in which Islam and democracy could co-habit, a model that would inspire less-democratic Arab nations. Palestinians, Iraqis, Egyptians, Jordanians and other Muslims in the Maghreb would supposedly wish to become more moderate and less violent. This bizarre political experience has sadly ended with the opposite result: Turks have become less moderate and more violent.

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