The Friend of My Enemy is My Enemy — Unless It’s Iran

While it is said the enemy of my enemy is my friend, what status then attaches to the friend of my enemy? If our enemy has a friend who opts to give him shelter and support as well as a mandate to do us harm, does not his friend qualify as our enemy? Apparently not when the friend of our enemy is Iran, a country where the ruling mullahs– in President Obama’s eyes, apparently– can do no wrong.

Obama has chosen either to manipulate or ignore concerns by three of his own federal agencies that have raised red flags about Iranian terrorist activities. Why he has done so should be yet another consideration Congress examines in reviewing the nuclear agreement with Iran.

Thomas Joscelyn’s article “Iran Is Working with al Qaeda (So why are we working with Iran?)” documents a disturbing link between Iran and al-Qaeda which, inexplicably, causes President Obama no concern.

On July 8^th, while nuclear talks with Iran were still in session, the Pentagon announced it had killed a long sought-after al-Qaeda terrorist leader, Muhsin al-Fadhli, in Syria. He had headed the Khorasan Group—an elite unit of operatives plotting against the West. It was a decade-long effort to find and eliminate Fadhli, whose lengthy reign of terror was due, in large part, to Iran providing him with shelter and support.

In October 2012, the U.S. Treasury Department published a report identifying Fadhli as working with “al-Qaeda’s Iran-based facilitation network” as early as 2009. (His predecessor had been doing so since 2005.)

Apparently, the only constraint placed on Fahdli by Iran was that he report his activities to the mullahs—activities which included funding al-Qaeda’s efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan and moving fighters through Turkey into Syria. This was obviously required so the mullahs ensured al-Qaeda terrorist activities and goals did not conflict with their own.

The Treasury Department had already revealed earlier, in July 2011, that Iran and al-Qaeda had entered into a secret deal allowing the latter “to funnel funds and operatives through (Iranian) territory.” In February 2012, Treasury became more specific, calling out Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) for its activities in support of al-Qaeda.

While a lack of evidence argument was raised in May 2012 questioning the Iran/al-Qaeda link, Treasury repeated the claim in August 2014—this time including reference to an Iran/Taliban deal as well.

Treasury’s reports established a clear trend in Iran’s terrorist activities—activities that presented a serious threat to the U.S. Yet, despite these revelations, President Obama—as Joscelyn points out—while willing to recognize Fahdli as a U.S. threat refused to extend the same status to the mullahs.

A second federal agency to report on this linkage, as late as 2014, was the U.S. Department of State in its annual reports on terrorism. Interestingly, as negotiations with Iran on its nuclear program re-started, the reports were toned down—with the most recent, without any evidence to support it, suggesting the threat was a past, rather than present, one.

A third federal agency required to bury the truth is the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. In the 2015 national intelligence report, submitted to the U.S. Senate, Iran—long designated the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism—suddenly no longer was! Its terrorist label, for some unexplained reason, had quietly been removed. Also stripped of its terrorist label was Iran’s proxy, Hezbollah—which is linked to the deaths of 241 U.S. servicemen in the 1983 Beirut bombing of the Marine Barracks.

By refusing to confront Iran’s support of the Khorasan Group and to undertake any effort to negotiate termination of its terrorist activities, President Obama sends a disturbing message to the mullahs. He gives them a green light to continue doing the business of terrorism as usual. Not only that, should the nuclear deal be approved, he will be funding their future terrorist efforts by unfreezing $150 billion in assets. An acknowledgement of this by National Security Advisor Susan Rice is admission of U.S. complicity in any such future attack.

During negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program, the mullahs felt absolutely no need even to feign the appearance of abating its terrorist activities. That is because there was no motivation for them to do so. All the signals they were receiving indicated President Obama desperately wanted an accord—and was willing to achieve it at whatever price was necessary.

The ongoing terrorist activities by an Iranian leadership—conducted while lacking a nuclear arsenal with which to threaten the world—do not bode well for a future in which it will have one to do so.

The expression “Seventh Heaven” is linked to various origins, including Islam. Muslims believe it to be the dwelling place of God. Based on the deal Iranian negotiators have cut with Obama, they undoubtedly feel they are there.