OPINION:
ANALYSIS/OPINION:
PARIS — French and Belgian police in the past few days foiled what they say was a plot to bomb the National Council of Resistance of Iran’s “Free Iran Gathering 2018” here in Paris.
No matter the strength of the bomb, there would have been mass casualties, as the Paris convention hall was packed to the rafters with angry opponents of the mullahs’ regime, with approximately 100,000 people in attendance.
What is striking about the incident is that, along with a couple in Belgium, an Iranian diplomat in Austria was arrested for the plot and stripped of his diplomatic immunity. The Iranian regime of course expressed outrage: How dare they arrest one of our terrorists posing as a diplomat? A false flag operation to sabotage the Iran nuclear deal in Europe!
Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s visit to European capitals went forward this week, despite the brazen incident, in a bid to save the 2015 nuclear accord with Europe and the lucrative business deals Tehran hopes go along with it.
The alleged plot and Mr. Rouhani’s follow-up trip reveal two things. One is the recklessness (or perhaps tone-deafness) of the Iranian regime in the face of the most serious existential threat they have faced in their tortured history. The fact that the regime was so brazen as to use diplomatic assets to facilitate the plot is stunning, at the very time Tehran is trying to make Europe believe Iran doesn’t want a military nuclear program. In short, Iran’s leaders are liars, and this plot just shows that all the more. Most likely, the 2015 deal, even with Europe, is now dead; it’s all over but the shouting.
Second, the incident shows how badly European leaders crave Iran’s money. They don’t care about anything else. They preach “European values” but support liars and killers. They whine about the possible destruction of NATO, while refusing to spend the money to defend themselves. They prescribe the “rule of law” to others while giving money to murderers, so they can get money themselves. President Obama was effectively one of these “liberal Europeans.” Donald Trump, thank God, is not.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, both of whom addressed the Free Iran Gathering, got it right. Europe needs to be shamed into restoring sanctions on Iran. Mr. Giuliani, now the president’s lawyer, said Europe should be “ashamed” of itself for trying to work with the regime in Iran.
“Anybody who thinks the ayatollahs are honest people is a fool,” he said. “They are crooks and that’s what Europe is propping up … murderers and sponsors of terrorism. Instead of taking an opportunity to topple them, [the Europeans] are now left propping them up.”
With a set of swift moves against the regime, the Trump administration has reset the Middle East and finally set the region on the path to peace. Iran is the last of the Axis of Evil to come to its senses. Iranian officials are the instigators of war across the Levant. Mr. Trump will not allow Iran’s long-sought Shia Crescent to be completed and fortified, in a bid to threaten Israel. With the U.S. withdrawal from the fatally flawed 2015 nuclear deal and the reconstitution of sanctions, Mr. Trump has signed the regime’s death warrant. Europe should get on the right side of history.
I’ll close with the words of Mr. Gingrich in Paris: “Freedom will come. It has been paid for by the blood of patriots. It has been paid for by the sweat of patriots. It has been paid for by those who stand up to dictatorship.”
On Iran, Europeans are just delaying the inevitable. It is time for regime change in Iran.
• L. Todd Wood is a former special operations helicopter pilot and Wall Street debt trader, and has contributed to Fox Business, The Moscow Times, National Review, the New York Post and many other publications. He can be reached through his website, LToddWood.com.
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