(This article first appeared in Brussels Morning: https://brusselsmorning.com/2021/06/14/time-to-examine-ursula-von-der-leyens-performance/)

Brussels (Brussels Morning) ‘Sofagate’ now seems a distant memory. A few weeks later, however, now that the dust has settled, it is very important to reflect long and hard on the issues raised and on the many lessons to be learned in parliament from this diplomatic spat.

Ms von der Leyen indicated that, during her visit to Ankara, she had felt ‘hurt’ and ‘abandoned’ and accused Turkish President Erdoğan of subjecting her to sexist treatment by failing to provide a chair for her as he had for Charles Michel.

I have to admit that, when I rose to speak during the European Parliament debate on this matter, I did not actually concern myself with the reasons for which no chair had been provided for the President of the Commission, or why her staff had failed to anticipate such a situation. I have to say that the obsession with such an issue appeared inappropriate, to say the least, at a time when our citizens were in the throes of the COVID-19 crisis that has been driving so many small businesses to the edge of bankruptcy and creating widespread mental anguish, especially among the young. I did, however, take advantage of her presence to raise the question of her failure to ensure the purchase of vaccines, as a result of which the COVID pandemic has lasted far longer in the EU than in the United Kingdom, Israel or the United States.

To my astonishment, I found myself practically alone, since my fellow MEPs were too busy falling over themselves to excoriate President Michel and President Erdoğan for their treatment of the Commission President in Turkey. They failed to utter a single word about her mistakes in handling the COVID crisis or to take advantage of this ideal opportunity to address the vaccine purchase fiasco while she was actually in the room. Instead, Parliament simply handed her a free pass. She left the Chamber as she entered it, unbloodied and unbowed. ‘Mission accomplished’, she must have thought to herself. Turkish musical chairs had carried the day and obsession with EU prestige had outweighed any concerns about the well-being of millions of European citizens. The failures of Ms von der Leyen were matched by the failure of many of my colleagues to rise to the occasion that day.

It speaks volumes that she has presented herself as a victim at a time when so many EU citizens are beset by the fallout from the COVID-19 crisis. Only weak leaders have recourse to such tactics.

Frankly, the reasons for which Ms von der Leyen was appointed to the top post in the EU executive have always been something of a mystery to me. There is no doubt that Germany, was happy enough to be rid of her, in view of her record as German Defence Minister and the shambles she left behind her in the Bundeswehr. Firstly, it found itself short of the necessary manpower and equipment to perform its tasks properly. Secondly, her term of office was dogged by constant issues of probity, culminating in a bill presented to the German taxpayer for repairs to the ‘Gorch Fock’ German Navy tall ship, the original estimate of just EUR 10 million having swelled to EUR 135 million. Only in politics is such failure rewarded by promotion to a top job.

On 31 August 2020, she announced the Commission’s intention of launching a vaccine procurement programme. That was her chance to show that a European approach to complex issues has only advantages. As things turned out, however, we now find ourselves shouldering the consequences of failure to roll out a rapid European vaccination campaign. What is more, the buck does not stop with Ms von der Leyen. It is the pharmaceutical companies that are taking the blame. Playing the Sofagate victim card was therefore just one more example of her distorted view of what leadership actually entails.

My fellow members are also to blame for letting slip the opportunity that presented itself on 26 April to call her to account for the vaccine chaos. I am frankly disappointed in them. I could not care less about the reasons for which no chair was provided for Ms von der Leyen and am not losing a single night’s sleep about the impact this is having on the EU’s international prestige. I just hope that her attitude since the incident in question will have opened a few more eyes to the fact that she is the wrong woman in the wrong place. If so, at least the Sofagate affair will have served some purpose after all.

By: Adelle Nazarian, Media Fellow and Dr. Seyed Hossein Lotfizadeh

An impressive array of congressional letters have been pulling the Biden administration in opposite directions regarding the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (“Iran deal” for short) negotiated under former President Barack Obama over a span of days. While the heated atmosphere is a clear indication of the perils of whatever path the Biden administration opts to pursue, one would hope that cooler heads prevail at end of the day given the stakes.

This won’t be possible, however, without a closer look at the fine print of the deal which includes important but often overlooked provisions of the accord that are expected to make the world a far less safe place based on the bad actors it helps.

Case in point: in February 2021, the death (from SARS-CoV-2) of an obscure yet shady and sinister character became a reminder of the dangers that a point-by-point implementation of the accords would entail. It is no exaggeration to point out that such unforeseen risks could overshadow concerns about nuclear proliferation.

We are talking about a convicted terrorist that, despite committing double murder on allied European soil, served but a few years, and thanks to the nuclear deal, could have had the chance to carry out his crimes again. The issue is, a re-entry into this deal will provide the opportunity for others like him to assassinate targets of the Iranian regime.

A 2015 piece in the Wall Street Journal bemoaned the fact that, under the deal, there would be “nefarious characters whose names would be removed under the deal from Western sanctions lists.”

The person referred to here was a Lebanese national named Anis Naccache (alternatively al-Naqqash). A moment of reflection over the life “achievements” of Naccache suffices to show how dangerous this would be.

A eulogy of Naccache published in Iran’s state-run outlet Tehran Times is illuminating: Allegedly, before Iran’s 1979 Islamization, Naccache “was a fighter in the front ranks of the Palestinian resistance in Lebanon and one of the most prominent security and military figures in it,” and “he participated in military operations outside Lebanon for the sake of the Palestinian cause.”

Reality is not so romantic.

In December 1975, a team of six assailants raided the meeting of OPEC oil ministers in Vienna, Austria. A massive hostage crisis followed, which resulted in several deaths and over 60 captives. The “glorious” operation was led by one of most notorious terrorists of the day, the Venezuelan Ilich Ramirez Sanchez, aka “Carlos the Jackal” (who, not incidentally, bore the name of the leader of Russia’s 1917 Bolshevik revolution). Naccache was one of the participants.

Raised as a Sunni Muslim, Naccache converted to Shia Islam later in life, and became a fan of Iran’s version of Shia Islamism. Given his impressive resume as a terrorist, his attraction to the newly founded Islamic Republic in Iran would come as no surprise. Once on board, however, he went out of his way to please his new masters.

In 1980, Naccache was captured after he tried to assassinate Shapur Bakhtiar; Iran’s secular leader toppled by Islamists. During the attempt, he killed two French citizens and permanently disabled a third, a police officer.

It’s worthy to note that a large number of dissidents against the regime of Iran, with a broad range of ideologies and political affiliations, were assassinated in Europe in the 1980s and 1990s, and this played no small part in browbeating many millions of Iranian expats into silence. The regime, however, never took responsibility for the killings, always blaming them on “infighting” among dissident groups.

One might wonder why such “infighting” among Iranians would be of interest to a Lebanese with a long history of involvement in terrorism.

In Naccache’s case, the motives were quite clear, as was the fact that the regime came out fully in his defense. While demands for his release would likely not get very far on their own, the kidnapping of several French citizens in the Middle East by pro-Iran groups and the desire to secure their freedom would be a different matter.

Hostage taking has become a standard practice for the Islamic Republic of Iran (IRI). Naccache was pardoned by France’s socialist leader François Mitterrand in 1990 and immediately took a flight to Iran.

Neither French nor Iranian officials ever admitted this was a “prisoner exchange”; quite similar to America’s refusal to admit that the “pallets of cash” it sent to Iran in 2016 as Americans were set free in what was clearly seen as a quid pro quo exchange.

Yet the temporal coincidence between the release of Naccache and the French hostages is an undeniable reality. And even in France, it is not so common for convicted murderers to be release after in a mere 10 years.

Shortly thereafter, Naccache’s would be victim, Shapur Bakhtiar, was “successfully” assassinated. The assassins were surely aware that even if caught, their punishment would barely be more than a mere slap on the wrist, and in fact, they were freed after less than 20 years behind bars in another prisoner swap.

Upon his release, Naccache became a “business man,” but never gave up his involvement with terrorism. While the Sunni al-Qaeda and Shia Islamic Republic of Iran may seem like strange bedfellows, they have been alleged to join forces and cooperate covertly — often by proxy — on certain projects against their common enemy: America and the West.

As the 2015 Wall Street Journal piece pointed out, “[I]n 2008 the European Union determined that Mr. Naccache was linked to Iran’s nuclear-proliferation activities…Brussels added him to a sanctions list due to his alleged role in Iran’s nuclear program, not his terrorist past.”

And yet, he would “be removed from the EU sanctions list under the nuclear deal,” as would “numerous other Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps leaders responsible for the deaths of many Iranian dissidents, U.S. servicemen in Iraq and civilians in Syria and elsewhere.”

Upon Naccache’s death – by none other than the coronavirus –, Syria’s genocidal dictator Bashar al-Assad sent the following message: “We offer…all…freedom-fighters the sincerest condolence.” Some “freedom-fighting the attempt on Bakhtiar’s life was.

Eulogies for Naccache also identified him as a “comrade” of Imad Mughniyeh, another shadowy figure linked to the attack on the US embassy in Beirut in 1983 that left 67 dead, the truck bombings against French paratroopers and US Marine barracks resulting in deaths of 60 French and 240 American service personnel, and numerous other acts of murder, torture, hijacking and kidnapping.

It would be tempting to have a “let bygones be bygones” attitude and not allow incidents from the 1980s and 1990s get in the way of 2021’s priorities, particularly as it pertains to an issue as important as the nuclear deal.

Unfortunately, while we may be willing to assign extraterritorial acts of terrorism by the regime of Iran to the history books, the IRI itself has no such intention.

As recent as February 2021, a court in Belgium found a Vienna based agent for the Iranian regime guilty of trying to bomb a meeting of an Iranian opposition group in France in 2018. That the mentioned agent was using his diplomatic status as cover only further demonstrates that such brazen acts of murder and intimidation are not just a matter of the past, but very much in the present.

Rejoining the deal as it was first negotiated would make the world a less safe place. Such security concerns are among the reasons European nations, having in the past criticized the US for withdrawing unilaterally from the deal, are now cognizant that negotiations to revive the deal need to extend to hitherto untouched subjects and simple readhesion would be unwise.

After all, such acts by the IRI pose a greater threat to French, British and German citizens than they do to their American counterparts.

Dr. Seyed Hossein Lotfizadeh, (Hos Loftus, MD), is an Iranian-born American physician trained in the field of neurology at Boston University, followed by several extra subspecialty years of training at various institutions in different states.

Adelle Nazarian is a senior media fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy and a communications director for several non-government organizations.