A dozen years ago, the loved ones of men and women murdered on 9/11 set out to seek whatever measure of justice could be achieved in U.S. courts. Their chances of success seemed exceedingly remote.
Yet Fiona Havlish, who lost her husband, Lynn Derbyshire, who lost a brother, Grace M. Parkinson-Godshalk, who lost a son, and a handful of others persevered.
Eventually, their lawyers amassed evidence that documented Iran’s complicity in the attack — and that swayed Manhattan Federal Judge Katherine Forrest to give permission to claim a trophy Fifth Ave. office tower held by a foundation that is a front for the Iranian government.
The intrepid plaintiffs appear on the verge of taking title to that property and several others with a cumulative value of well more than a half-billion dollars. Even so, it is small justice.
They scored this signal victory just as the Iranian government, led by the supposedly moderate Hassan Rouhani, has applied for credentials to install as his United Nations ambassador a man who participated in the 1979 seizure of the U.S. embassy in Tehran.
Hamid Aboutalebi protests that he was a translator when the Iranian regime sanctioned the hostage-taking of 52 Americans — as if serving only as a translator would make a difference.
Aboutalebi was there. He was part of the death-to-America crowd. He has no place in the United States, let alone as a dignitary. As former hostage Barry Rosen put it:
“It may be a precedent, but if the President and the Congress don’t condemn this act by the Islamic Republic, then our captivity and suffering for 444 days at the hands of Iran was for nothing. He can never set foot on American soil.”
President Obama must recognize Rouhani’s choice of Aboutalebi for the deliberate show of contempt that it is.
Rouhani sent the hostage-taker Obama’s way as the U.S. is attempting to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapon capability. Rather than ratchet up economic sanctions that were starting to bite, Obama agreed to discuss terms with an opening bid that surrendered ground.
Clearly, Rouhani believes he has the stronger hand — strong enough to stick a thumb in Obama’s eye. Will the President dare to shut out Aboutalebi? He must.
Iran has consistently used terror and murder to accomplish its ends, patronizing Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad, sending allies to prop up the bloodthirsty Syrian regime and even finding common cause with Al Qaeda.
In 1998, when the U.S. first indicted Osama Bin Laden, the charges stated that he joined “with the government of Iran and its associated terrorist group Hezbollah for the purpose of working together against their perceived common enemies.”
After the mass murder at the World Trade Center, the 9/11 Commission found that eight hijackers passed through Iran and were joined on their flight there from Saudi Arabia by a senior Hezbollah operative. The commission drew no conclusions about Iran’s involvement, but advised that the subject warranted further review.
That review has come. In 2011, the Treasury Department reported Iran had entered a secret deal to “serve as the core pipeline through which Al Qaeda moves money, facilitators and operatives from across the Middle East to South Asia.”
That same year, Washington Federal Judge John Bates found that Iran had “aided, abetted and conspired with Hezbollah, Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda” in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
And in the case filed by the survivors of 9/11 victims, Manhattan Federal Judge George Daniels relied in part on then-sealed testimony from high-level defectors to find Iran legally responsible for providing “material support” for the terror attack.
Now, plain old Americans have stood up to Iran. Their President must, too.
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