{"id":262276,"date":"2022-08-12T17:47:40","date_gmt":"2022-08-12T15:47:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/?p=262276"},"modified":"2023-02-06T11:00:57","modified_gmt":"2023-02-06T10:00:57","slug":"irans-terrorist-plot-should-lead-to-accountability-for-entire-iranian-regime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ncr-iran.org\/en\/news\/terrorism-a-fundamentalism\/irans-terrorist-plot-should-lead-to-accountability-for-entire-iranian-regime\/","title":{"rendered":"Iran\u2019s Terrorist Plot Should Lead to Accountability for Entire Iranian Regime"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Grand-Gathering-of-Iranians-for-FreeIran-1st-July-2017\"
Amb. John Bolton, addressing the Free Iran gathering \u2013 July 1, 2017<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

It was reported on Wednesday that a member of Iran\u2019s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps<\/a> had made concrete efforts to arrange the assassination of former White House national security advisor John Bolton. Though charges have been filed against him in the US, Shahram Poursafi<\/a> currently remains at large.<\/p>\n

While there may be only a slim chance of Poursafi coming within reach of US law enforcement now, there are other measures that the US and the entire international community can and should take to prevent the further proliferation of such terrorist threats. All such measures start with one essential step: holding the entire Iranian regime accountable for its operatives\u2019 actions throughout the world.<\/p>\n

Prior reports indicate that John Bolton has been subject to threats against his life for more than two years. The same is true of various other former US officials, and many of those threats have been communicated in public by leading Iranian officials, including the regime\u2019s president Ebrahim Raisi.<\/a><\/p>\n

In a January speech boosted by the IRGC-linked Fars News Agency<\/a>, Raisi called for the prosecution of those responsible for the 2020 drone strike that killed IRGC Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani. But after mentioning former US President Donald Trump and former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo by name, Raisi went on to suggest that if they did not face trial in an Islamic court, the principle of qisas, or \u201cretribution in kind\u201d should be imposed by default and \u201cGod\u2019s judgment should be carried out against them.\u201d<\/p>\n

A year earlier, upon the first anniversary of Soleimani\u2019s killing and several months before ascending to the presidency, then-judiciary chief Raisi made an explicit threat<\/a>. \u201cThe enemy should wait for harsh revenge,\u201d he said before labeling Iranian regime\u2019s terrorist proxies as \u201cresistance forces\u201d and declaring that \u201cthey will determine when and where to take [Soleimani\u2019s] revenge\u2026 Those who played a part in this crime will have no safety in any place around the globe. The resistance forces have this iron will to take revenge.\u201d<\/p>\n

Raisi\u2019s resulting installation as president of the Iranian regime has been cited by the regime\u2019s critics as one of the clearest examples to date of that regime\u2019s impunity and unshakeable commitment to the worst of its many malign activities. That interpretation has been reinforced ever since by rising numbers of executions and politically-motivated arrests, a general worsening of the country\u2019s climate of repression, and new instances of Western nationals being taken hostage and used as bargaining chips by Iranian authorities.
\nPoursafi\u2019s attempt to recruit and coordinate assassins inside the US is a direct consequence of the West\u2019s appeasement policy and the resulting sense that if Tehran fails to carry out a terrorist attack in the West, it is usually free to simply try again.<\/p>\n

In 2018, a former Iranian diplomat, Assadollah Assadi<\/a> was arrested in connection with a failed plot to set off explosives at a gathering of Iranian expatriates that had been organized near Paris by, the National Council of Resistance of Iran. Assadi was eventually sentenced by a Belgian court to 20 years in prison for conspiring to commit terrorism and murder, but just last month the Belgian parliament approved a treaty which detractors fear will lead to his release in a prisoner swap.<\/p>\n

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An Iranian diplomat convicted to 20 years imprisonment by a court in Belgium - February 2021<\/div><\/div>
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