For decades now our Western society has made a success out of democracy and an economy based on free market forces. It is no coincidence that the two go hand in hand, because in an environment where people have the freedom to think and act, innovation and progress arise. Another key component of this success was affordable and reliable energy. The prosperity that these three components have brought us has also ensured that we have made great strides in improving the environment and living standards especially in the Western part of Europe.

But the economic freedom that has brought us so much may well be over. Today, ‘Fit for 55′ is presented as part of Frans Timmermans’ Green Deal, a mega package of legislation from the European Commission to ‘green’ the economy.

Updates to existing EU laws:

● Revision of the EU emission trading scheme (EU ETS)

● Revision of the regulation on land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF)

● Revision of the effort sharing regulation (ESR)

● Amendment to the renewable energy directive (RED)

● Amendment to the energy efficiency directive (EED)

● Revision of the alternative fuels infrastructure directive (AFID)

● Amendment of the regulation setting CO2 emission standards for cars and vans

● Revision of the energy taxation directive

New legislative proposals:

● New EU forest strategy

● A carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM)

● A Climate Action Social Facility

● ReFuelEU Aviation – on sustainable aviation fuels

● FuelEU Maritime – on greening Europe’s maritime space

The Commission claims that this package will modernize the economy, stimulate innovation and provide a competitive advantage over other economies. But when politicians (especially EU politicians!) talk about innovation and competitiveness, alarm bells go off in my head.

A European planned economy and a display of lost faith in the free market

All aspects of our economy will be affected by this proposal. The European Commission is embarking on a risky venture in which it not only says ‘what’ should be done, but also ‘how’ it should be done. The government seizes the entrepreneur’s seat and consumers’ hands are guided with respect to their consumption behaviour. Fit-for-55 is an outright planned economy. Progress happens when creative entrepreneurs have the space to turn ideas into reality. Regulation follows innovation, not the other way around. That should be the guiding principle. What the package makes clear is that the European Commission has definitively lost its faith in the free market.

What does this mean for the climate?

The EU itself estimates that this increased ambition from 40% to 55% reduction of greenhouse gases compared to 1990 will cost 1,300 billion euros. However, according to the more realistic estimate of Bjørn Lomborg, the costs will amount to 4 to 5 thousand billion euros. If all EU targets are met, the final result will be an immeasurably small temperature reduction of just 0.04°C. Environment, nature and landscape will suffer major damage and there will be no sign of a temperature reduction.

The Commission’s climate plans are insanely expensive, will take away many of our freedoms and have next to no effect on the climate. Our economy is being put at risk with production costs and consumer prices rising sharply. If this new ‘green economy’ really is the revenue model the Commission believes it to be, we would not need all this legislation. There is a real danger that the competitive position of the countries within the EU will be damaged compared to China, the United States and also emerging economies such as India.

Nuclear power is the only option

Does that mean we should do nothing then? No, certainly not, we must continue what we were doing, which is investing responsibly in an even better future. Politicians may determine the real goals, but in a technologically neutral way. The execution should be left to the market. After all, every investment must be able to be recouped properly and subsidies should never become a permanent instrument. This applies to both energy generation and investments in insulation.

The proposed solutions must contribute to a better future, but the Commission continues to insist on biomass as a large component on the path to carbon neutrality. Complete forests go into the oven, which is at odds with the set goals. Trees absorb CO2 and are important for biodiversity. Combustion for energy generation also releases more CO2 and air pollution than gas. Wind turbines and solar meadows are not efficient, and generating energy in this way comes at the expense of nature, landscape and public health.

In fact, investing in nuclear energy is currently the only solution to phase out fossil fuels in the long term. Nuclear energy is reliable, has a high energy density and is therefore efficient, so that nature and landscape are spared. It also emits no air pollution at all and, contrary to what activists say, the waste is very manageable. France has proven this for decades.

But the Commission, with all its ambitious plans, has not yet included this form of energy generation in its taxonomy plans. As a result, there is no economic level playing field with respect to solar, wind energy and biomass.

Recently, two EU scientific councils published their conclusions on nuclear energy. In general, the reports confirm the previous conclusions of the Commission’s Joint Research Center (JRC) that nuclear energy is an important tool in phasing out fossil fuels and does not cause serious damage to the environment. This means it meets an important condition for being included in the taxonomy. Nuclear energy is also part of the solution in the IPCC scenarios, and NASA previously calculated that current nuclear energy has saved millions of lives because it has prevented air pollution.

Conclusion

In summary, all major success factors of our Western society are currently under pressure because of these Fit-for-55 plans. Free market forces are changing into a planned economy and energy generation is becoming less efficient and therefore more expensive for companies and consumers.

But the greatest danger lies in the threat to democracy. With this package of measures, citizens will no longer have any say in what our society should look like for the next 30 years. That has already been determined in the Berlaymont building. And that is eerily similar to the situation that the people of the former Soviet Union left behind 30 years ago.

Robert Roos worked for ten years as an employee in engineering and construction companies on big projects in the oil and gas industry and also in the infrastructure industry. Now as a Member of European Parliament, he sits on the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy. Roos is a Honorary Distinguished Fellow at the Gold Institute for International Strategy.

This Article first appeared in the American Spectator https://spectator.org/supreme-court-packing-democrats-stephen-breyer/)

By: John C. Wohlstetter

In a previous American Spectator article, “Dems to Supremes: Shape Up or Pack Up!,” I examined the lessons to be drawn from Franklin Roosevelt’s failed 1937 effort to pack the Supreme Court by raising the number of justices from nine to 15.

Roosevelt proposed that a new justice should be added for each sitting justice who is age 70 or older. Had Roosevelt been successful with his plan, the aging justices who blocked his New Deal programs would be nullified and the Court’s ideological balance would have shifted to the left.

FDR claimed that adding justices was all about lessening the justices’ workload. But court-packers today accept the real reason behind FDR’s plan: to change the Court’s ideological course. The motive FDR initially disclaimed, Democrats openly embrace.

Round Two: Court-Packing Redux

In 1937, Justice Owen Roberts, a swing justice appointed by Herbert Hoover in 1932, began providing narrow majorities that upheld New Deal legislation. Some have interpreted these rulings as clever political maneuvers that intentionally protected the Court’s integrity. And many believe that this judicial shift saved the Supreme Court from FDR’s court-packing plan. 

Advertisement

These rulings include West Coast Hotel Company v. Parrish, which upheld Washington state’s minimum wage law for women, and Jones & Laughlin v. NLRB, which upheld the Wagner Labor Relations Act, a law that enacted broad federal protections for labor unions.

Both cases were decided 5-4. They marked the death knell of the Court’s doctrine of “substantive due process,” under which infringements upon freedom of contract were treated as violations of the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process clause.

The shift by Roberts gave rise to the famous quip about the Court’s volte-face: “the switch in time that saved nine.” And, a generation before that quip, there was Finley Peter Dunne’s Mr. Dooley (rendered in modern English): “No matter whether the Constitution follows the flag or not, the Supreme Court follows the election returns.”

The Left Resurrects the Court-Packing Plot

Democrats in recent years have tried to redefine “court-packing” as “court reform” so that it encompasses not only adding justices but also principles of constitutional and statutory jurisprudence. Proponents even chose a new weasel verb — “restructuring.” FDR had used “reorganization.”

This tactic draws from the practice of totalitarian countries that describe themselves as democratic people’s republics to blur the distinction between their dictatorships and genuinely free countries. This sanitizes their tyrannies — at least in the eyes of some observers.

In 2019, five senators filed an amicus brief in a gun regulation case in which they warned the Court that its rulings could undermine its “legitimacy.” And during the 2020 presidential campaign, Joe Biden was coy about whether or not he’d pack the Court, saying that he’d decide after the election. Most recently, Nancy Pelosi accused the conservative justices (plus Chief Justice John Roberts, a swing vote) of threatening voting rights.

For her part, Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said that nine was the correct number and that FDR was wrong to try to pack the Court. Justice Stephen Breyer has also come out — firmly — against repeating FDR’s effort.

The American Bar Association also issued serial declarations defending “judicial independence” in 1998, 2005, 2017, 2018, and<a href=”https://www.americanbar.org/news/abanews/aba-news-archives/2019/08/annual-2019–panel-to-address-so-called-judges–other-attacks-on/”> 2019. From these, collectively, come twin takeaways. First, as Justice Sandra Day O’Connor said, “Criticism is fine, but retaliation and intimidation are not.” Second, the 1998 document sees a difference between “intemperate criticism” of a judge’s decision versus a “political” threat to impeach a judge if a case is not decided “favorably.” The former is undesirable; the latter is indefensible.</a>

Donald Trump has pilloried the Court, often intemperately, for which most of the media and their allies in law and academia have lambasted him. But with today’s media, Pelosi and the Democrats get a pass for their attacks on the Court. 

Round Three: Justices and Some Long Goodbyes

Apologies to Raymond Chandler, whose detective story The Long Goodbye features all sorts of skullduggery not to be found on the more mundane lives of America’s 115 justices (17 have served as chief justice). They are frequently in no hurry to leave the bench. In one of the neatest tales from Court annals, one justice, Charles Evans Hughes, was appointed twice. He was first appointed by William Howard Taft in 1910 as associate justice and stepped down in 1916 to run for president. After serving as secretary of state under Warren Harding, Hughes returned to the Court in 1930 as chief justice, appointed by Herbert Hoover. He replaced Taft, who had originally appointed him in 1910; he voluntarily stepped down in 1941 at age 79, albeit in full possession of his faculties, and died at age 86 in 1948. Though appointed twice, he is counted only once in the total number of justices, as are several others who served as associate justice and were subsequently appointed chief justice.

Alas, not all justices have chosen to “go gentle into that good night” of serene retirement. As told in law processor Henry Abraham’s superb 1999 book, Justices, Presidents and Senators, several cases have offered backstage — and at times front stage — drama. Genuinely poignant are the interleaved stories of Justices Robert Grier and Stephen Field. Appointed in 1846 by James Polk, Grier reluctantly retired in 1870, shortly before his death, age 76, later that year. Field, appointed by Honest Abe in 1863, had been tasked in 1869 by his fellow justices with a melancholy errand: approach the senile Grier to tell him that his time had passed. Shortly after, Grier assented. Then in 1897, Field was no longer able to serve. In his senescence, he found himself being asked to retire by John Marshall Harlan Sr. But Field refused, exclaiming, “Yes, and a dirtier day’s work I never did in my life!” But nine months later, Field succumbed to the inevitable and died two years later.

The next major impasse came with Justice William O. Douglas, who was appointed by FDR in 1939 and was the last justice born in the 19th century (1898). The end drew nigh when Douglas suffered a massive stroke on the last day of 1974, rendering him partially paralyzed and also mentally debilitated. Seven of his eight fellow justices agreed to postpone major cases until Douglas departed. It took former Justice Abe Fortas to persuade Douglas to make his exit in the middle of the Court’s fall 1975 term. At 36 years, Douglas remains the longest-serving justice; he died in 1980.

Democrats Look to Manipulate the Court

This brings us to the drama surrounding the late Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Born in 1933 and appointed by Bill Clinton in 1993, RBG endured numerous bouts with cancer, radiation, and chemotherapy. She died on September 18, 2020, 47 days before the November 4 election. During the Obama years, she was repeatedly approached and asked to retire so that a Democratic president could appoint a younger left-wing justice. Even after a meeting with the president, she demurred, reportedly stating that the Republicans would filibuster any Obama replacement and that her goal was to serve to age 90, as had her fellow jurist, Justice John Paul Stevens. No one spoke of this publicly, however. RBG was also caught falling asleep during oral arguments, which was ignored in the mainstream press.

In 2013, then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid exercised the infamous “nuclear option” by amending Senate Rule 22 so that nominations to the federal district and appeals courts could not be filibustered; the Supreme Court was exempted, as no vacancies had occurred. Democrats got a taste of their own medicine when, in 2017, Republicans amended Rule 22 to end the filibuster for the High Court, enabling Trump to appoint three justices during his presidency. 

Mindful of the debacle caused by Ginsburg’s perceived obstinacy, voices on the left are calling publicly for Breyer to retire while a Democrat occupies the Oval Office. Had he wished to do so this year, he’d have announced by the Court’s last day, July 2, to give enough time for the administration to put a replacement on the Court in time for the October 4 start of the Court’s fall term. If anyone still harbored hopes that Breyer would step down, he<a href=”https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/breyer-hires-four-law-clerks-for-next-term-high-court-confirms/ar-AALI77a”> just hired his four law clerks for the Court’s full 2021–22 term.</a>

So Breyer’s hinge point moments will be at the end of the Court’s first 2022 term or first 2024 term, before the fall elections in those years. But Breyer is now an incredibly influential justice. As a moderate liberal, he is better positioned to appeal for votes from the other justices than are the strongly progressive Kagan and Sotomayor.

Bottom Line

Expect Justice Breyer to stay for the foreseeable future. Breyer relishes his station, one that gives him vast influence in American life. Justices often wield far more power than any member of Congress, and in some cases have proven even more influential than presidents.

Doubtless Breyer will be apprised as July 2022 draws near as to what the odds appear to be for a GOP takeover of the Senate. And if he stays, a similar assessment will be made in 2024. But if Ginsburg, a far more ideological justice than Breyer has been, and one in failing health to boot, refused to step down, one should not make a book that Breyer, if his health holds, will step down in either year.

Put plainly, Justice Breyer has said publicly — and avowedly means — that law is what guides him, not partisan politics.

(This article first appeared in the American Spectator Magazine: https://spectator.org/supreme-court-packing/)

President Joe Biden’s tirade against a Supreme Court decision that didn’t go his way elevates the future of the Court to a new level of intensity and, hence, political priority.

Let’s begin with the president’s July 1 tweet reacting to the Court’s Arizona election law ruling:

Today’s decision by the Supreme Court undercuts voting rights in this country — and makes it all the more crucial to pass the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act to restore and expand voting rights protection.

On its face, the tweet simply criticizes the Court’s decision. But in the context of calls from senior Democrats to pack the Court unless it mends its ways, it translates into calling for rulings that conform to Democratic Party goals.

The Democrats aim to add justices to shift the Court’s balance leftward to erase the current conservative majority. Consider Sen. Chuck Schumer’s blatant 2020 threat warning the Supreme Court justices ahead of a decision on a Louisiana abortion case which tested Roe v. Wade.

I wanna tell you Gorsuch, I wanna tell you Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind and will pay the price, you won’t know what hit you if you go forward with these awful decisions.

Then there are two inappropriate intrusions by President Barack Obama: his 2010 attack on the Court’s free-speech ruling in the Citizens United case during his State of the Union address and his 2012 veiled warning to the Court in advance of its decision on Obamacare to not engage in “judicial activism.”

To her (rare) credit, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has stopped the House from considering court-packing legislation. But Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, who sits on the Judiciary Committee — and who, one hopes, never is elected to the Oval Office — bragged that his 2020 attack on Amy Coney Barrett during her confirmation hearing might have saved Obamacare, which was upheld in June. The none-too-subtle senator crowed, “If we hadn’t done that, maybe they would have” killed the law. “It may be [saved],” he added, “because we did so many warnings.”

Round One: FDR’s 1937 Court-Packing Debacle

The predicate for examining the 2021 court-packing debate is to review its infamous 1937 historical antecedent. The late Chief Justice William Rehnquist devoted an entire chapter in his 1987 book The Supreme Court: How It Was, How It Is to Franklin Roosevelt’s failed 1937 attempt to pack the bench.

Rehnquist set the stage for the first and so far only attempt to pack the Court by noting that in the 72 years from 1861 to 1933 — 18 presidential terms — Republicans controlled the White House for 56 years, excepting only Andrew Johnson (1865–69) Grover Cleveland (1885–89 and 1893–97), and Woodrow Wilson (1913–21). FDR then served continuously from 1933 until his death in 1945, just shy of three months into his fourth term.

FDR’s power reached its apex after his 1936 landslide over Alf Landon, who carried only his native Vermont and Maine. In addition to winning 46 states, FDR brought his party to epic heights in the House and Senate. Democrats began 1937 holding a 333-89 edge in the House and a 76-18 edge in the 96-seat Senate.

During FDR’s first term, three Court decisions landed the Supremes in hot water with the administration and its allies in Congress. The Supreme Court decided these cases on what New Dealers called Black Monday (May 27, 1935).

The first case, Humphrey’s Executor v. U.S., involved FDR’s attempt to remove a member of the Federal Trade Commission, whose members are confirmed by the Senate. The Court held that the president lacked the power to do so.

The second case, Louisiana Joint Stock Land Bank v. Radford, involved a complex mortgage security interest the bank held on a farmer’s property and sought to take much of the property without paying “just compensation” per the Fifth Amendment. Rehnquist summarized the holding: “[H]owever great the urgencies created by the farm depression, Congress could not deprive the mortgage holder of so much of his security without paying compensation for it.”

In the third case, Schechter Poultry Corp. v. U.S., the Court struck down the National Industrial Recovery Act, thus invalidating the jewel in the New Deal crown. It held that Congress could not delegate its legislative authority in full to administrative agencies (the “non-delegation doctrine”).

But the proverbial judicial straw that finally broke the presidential camel’s back was the January 1936 Court decision U.S. v. Butler. The Court struck down the Agricultural Adjustment Act as an unconstitutional use of the federal taxing power to invade regulatory provinces ceded by the Constitution to the states.

FDR’s first version of his plan, unveiled February 5, 1937, would have added one new seat for each sitting justice over 70 — then six of the nine members of the Court — who did not elect to retire before the plan became law. At the time, there were four conservative justices, collectively termed by their critics “the four horsemen” (of the judicial apocalypse): Willis Van Devanter, George Sutherland, and Pierce Butler. Three justices were liberals: Louis Brandeis, Harlan Stone, and Benjamin Cardozo. Two justices were considered “swing” votes, both appointed by Hoover: Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes and Associate Justice Owen Roberts.

FDR justified his court-packing plan on the age of the justices and their alleged inability to meet the Court workload. That flopped in the press — then mostly anti-FDR — with major papers controlled by what the blue-blood FDR termed “economic royalists.”

Chief Justice Charles Evans Hughes issued a letter, co-signed by justices Brandeis and Van Devanter, in which he vehemently denied that the Court could not handle its workload. One top FDR adviser, Robert H. Jackson, later said that this letter doomed FDR’s packing plan.

As Rehnquist recounts, the administration planned to start in the House of Representatives (where most legislation is supposed to originate) because its members are up for reelection every two years, and thus a popular president could put tremendous pressure on members to vote his way on major issues. But the House Judiciary Committee chairman, Hatton Sumners of Texas, was adamantly opposed to any plan to pack the Court, telling colleagues, “Boys, here’s where I cash in.”

Republicans in the Senate opposed FDR’s plan, but they remained silent, fearing that if the packing plan was viewed as a partisan issue it would turn out like the 1936 Democratic landslide. The Senate Majority Leader, Joe Robinson of Arkansas, would manage the legislative effort on behalf of FDR. The Democratic opposition in the Senate was led by Burton Wheeler, a gilt-edged progressive who had ardently campaigned for FDR in 1936, having supported the latter’s first-term accomplishments.

As opposition grew to FDR’s original scheme, Justice Van Devanter announced his retirement on May 18, some six weeks before the end of the Court’s first 1937 term. And on July 2, FDR unveiled a revised plan, having been told that there were not enough votes in the Senate to pass his first version. The age at which an additional justice would be added to the Court was raised to 75 with a limit of one new justice per year. Rehnquist notes that this was a minimal retreat. Given one appointment each in 1937 and 1938 plus replacing Van Devanter, FDR would have put three new justices on the Court within the first year.

Matters came to a head in mid-July when Joe Robinson dropped dead of heart failure. With some senators having personally pledged to Robinson that they would support the bill, the plan was dead upon his demise. The final Senate vote to recommit the bill was 70-20.

Rehnquist adds that supporters of the plan took a “lose a battle, win the war” view in that within four years FDR had replaced six of the nine justices. In all, FDR put eight justices on the bench.

Bottom Line: In light of her intense partisanship, Nancy Pelosi’s decision to avoid court-packing may fairly be termed astute political calculation. But it still goes into the record books. Comparing 1937 to the last decade’s assaults, what emerges most clearly is that (a) Democrats seem more united today than in 1937 in favoring court-packing, and (b) the dominant media has switched sides, from overwhelmingly opposing FDR’s plan to favoring or leaning towards such a move.

Rounds two (today’s court-packing) and three (calls on Justice Stephen Breyer to retire) will be covered in a second article.

The Gold Institute for International Strategy deplores the actions of the PYD (Partiya Yekîtiya Demokrat – Democratic Union Party) on June 20th, in closing the offices of Kurdistan 24, the premiere source of information from all regions of Greater Kurdistan.

The measure, taken without notice or explanation, casts doubts on the commitment of the administration of Rojava to elemental freedoms, the very freedoms the Kurdish people have fought tirelessly for decades to obtain.

Indeed, this is the second time the offices of Kurdistan24 have been closed, despite the PYD’s assurances that it seeks a “democratic solution that includes the recognition of cultural, national and political rights, and develops and enhances their peaceful struggle to be able to govern themselves in a multicultural, democratic society” for Rojava. Censorship of the press and persecution of ideas does not seem the proper vehicle to reach those lofty goals.

Around the world, many look to Kurdistan 24 to obtain first hand, unbiased reporting of events in all four Kurdistan regions in Syria, Iraq, Iran and Turkey, and we view its censorship as a troubling development, made more serious by the subsequent closing of the Semalka border crossing.

We hope that these ominous events do not herald a new era of authoritarianism returning to the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria and look forward to the free society Syrian Kurds have fought so valiantly to obtain.

I have long said that foreign policy is generally a non-partisan issue. While domestic issues (i.e. taxes, education, healthcare etc) often are, foreign policy is not. That is no longer. Over the last 5 months the Biden administration has implemented a highly partisan global strategy that turned international sentiment toward the notion that the U.S. can no longer be counted on to support our allies.

At the Gold Institute, I have the opportunity to spend a great deal of time with law makers from across the globe. Recently one particular European lawmaker said to me “It is by far today more dangerous to be friend of the USA than foe. Although times in which friends of freedom automatically considered themselves friends of the USA may have passed. This administration is so alien to everything we cherished that many people around the world are wondering if it’s definitely gone, the Paradise Lost.” This view that the U.S. can no longer be counted on as the global defender of freedom and western values is growing stronger and faster abroad than possibly even at home.

The need for the Gold Institute for International Strategy is now ever more important. There are few institutes in Washington DC that work hand in hand with global leaders to not only provide solutions, but more importantly the strategic blueprint with which to implement those very policy prescriptions. Our global fellows, located throughout the U.S., Europe, and the Middle East, are the best of the best practitioners – people who have spent their time in the trenches and have reached the top in their respective fields.

The Biden administration’s Middle East policy is designed for destabilization; JCPOA 2.0, a stated timeline for removal of forces from Afghanistan, a leftist [anti-]Israel policy, hesitancy to support Egypt in negotiations regarding Ethiopia’s Renaissance Dam project and a vague Iraq policy, just to name a few examples of the Biden destabilization plan. For this reason, I am thrilled to introduce our new Senior Fellow, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East Simone Ledeen. Her extensive experience in the Middle East, at DoD and the Treasury Department will provide the Institute and all those who engage with us an understanding and sustainable policy path forward.

Shortly before leaders from Israel, United Arab Emirates and Bahrain joined President Trump on the South Lawn of the White House to sign the Abraham Accords, an ambassador from an Arab country expressed to me his feeling that regional countries felt the imperative to sign the accords prior to the elections to hedge bets against a possible Biden administration pro-Iranian policy. It is now clear that the Abraham Accords are necessary to stability in the Gulf region as NATO is to Europe and North America. The Gold Institute fellows have been providing guidance to the senior policy makers across the globe on this since conception.

On the international stage our fellows are also deeply involved in matters concerning Turkey, Human Rights, Climate Change, global antisemitism, the resurgence of the likes of the Muslim Brotherhood and ISIS as well a whole host of other concerns.

Other fellows have been diligently working on domestic matters to include human trafficking and a policy and proactive law enforcement response to the rise of anti-Semitism. For this reason, I am pleased to let you know that retired NYPD Detective Investigator Mark Black has joined the Institute as a senior fellow. His long-time focus in counterterrorism, intelligence division and computer crimes will undoubtedly add greatly to the Institute’s impressive roster of fellows as well as our work and influence globally.

The impact the Gold Institute for International Strategy has at home and abroad is far reaching. For this reason, I ask you to support the work of our fellows. We are a 501(c)3 tax exempt institute that truly is non-partisan and sole purpose is providing results-based education to those global leaders who impact the safety and stability of the West and its allies.

To support our work, visit www.goldiis.org/donate-to-foreign-policy-solutions-dc.

(This article originally appeared in the American Spectator at https://spectator.org/event-tectonics-2021/)
In a March 2020 article for The American Spectator, “Event Tectonics: Quake, Shake, Bake & Fake,” I assessed the prospective impact — large — of COVID-19 and compared it in salience to prior events. Those events I divided into four categories:

1. Quake: a monster event that fundamentally transforms bedrock perceptions;
2. Shake: a major event that alters perceptions somewhat, but not enough to change underlying views;
3. Bake: an event that generates lots of heat but little light, leaving perceptions and underlying views intact; and
4. Fake: an event widely perceived as important that ultimately proves largely or entirely illusory.

I then put COVID-19 in the “Quake” category, and observed, “Perhaps above all, the largely optimistic bipartisan view of China as moving towards a freer, and thus friendlier, society will fall into history’s ash-heap.”

Heading the “Shake” category were the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. It seemed we had, at first, come together. But as the years dragged on without final victory, the country split asunder over detainee interrogation procedures, infiltration of Muslim terrorist groups, profiling at airports, and whether or not to try terror suspects in military or civilian tribunals.

For “Bake,” I flagged the Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign. While Sanders was seemingly a juggernaut headed for inevitable victory in the nomination battle, the belated entry of Joe Biden, who campaigned from the basement and held not a single genuine press event, won the day. (To be fair, Biden’s pull to the far Left seems to have been part of a deal under which Sanders sacrificed a long-shot presidential run for policy primacy should Biden win.)

For “Fake,” naturally I selected the Russia-collusion hoax that consumed the first two years of the Trump presidency. The hoax did lead to the first impeachment of the president, then an assured acquittal in the Senate trial.

With the above in mind, we may ask, What are 2021’s potentially tectonic events to date?

There are a plethora of domestic candidates:

(a) the Capitol Hill riot cum pseudo-insurrection, with new evidence that the FBI had penetrated the groups at the Capitol and went inside with them, and with the government sitting on 14,000 hours of unreleased video footage;

(b) Nancy’s Pelosi’s 24-hour snap impeachment of former President Trump, which lays the foundation for possible future partisan snap presidential impeachments;

(c) the open-borders immigration implosion, with video evidence of how the migrants are controlled by the cartels even when inside the U.S., including child prostitution;

(d) the shocking, steep rise in violent felonies, a massive urban crime wave created in large measure by defunding police, stripping police of protections against legal harassment — which led the entire Portland rapid response force to resign in protest — no-bail policies even for violent felons with a felony rap sheet, and an epic shoplifting epidemic in San Francisco due to enforcement lassitude and lenient laws on the books;

(e) a turbocharged green energy policy that closes down not only coal plants but also carbon-free natural gas facilities and pipelines — a 180-degree shift from Trump’s super-successful energy independence policies;

(f) an epic federal spending spree that revives prospects for 1970s-like hyperinflation;

(g) the use of domestic terror laws to target “white supremacists”; dissenters criticizing Muslims risk being tagged with the invented crime of “Islamophobia” while Palestinians attack Jews in LA — call it “Judoephobia”; and

(h) a social media–driven cancel culture coupled with Marxist school indoctrination from kindergarten through college and graduate schools. One response to cancel culture and Big Tech censorship is new publishers who will air all points of view.

And there are other domestic possibilities, lurking, so to speak, below the waterline, that could come to pass and would be tectonic:

(a) federal election “reform” that enshrines universal mail-in voting while eviscerating laws protecting ballot integrity and verifying voter identification — protection derided as “disinformation” by Attorney General Merrick Garland;

(b) legislating D.C. statehood despite its lack of constitutional warrant — the 23rd Amendment was adopted precisely because its supporters knew that statehood by statute was potentially reversible and thus settled for presentation in presidential elections, while sacrificing statehood;

(c) pushing Puerto Rico statehood after a rigged referendum event on the island produced a narrow margin in favor of statehood;

(d) a partisan commission designed to recommend legislation authorizing FDR-style Supreme Court packing; and

(e) abolishing the Electoral College.

The source of Garland’s derisory comment is the administration’s National Strategy for Countering Domestic Terrorism (NSCDT), released June 15. The document is sprinkled with language declaring that civil liberties, privacy, and peaceful protest will be fully protected and malefactors who commit or induce violence will be prosecuted regardless of where they are on the spectrum from left to right. There is reason, however, to believe otherwise. The introduction identifies what it terms “violent ideological motivations.” It states “Among that wide range of animating ideologies, racially or ethnically motivated violent extremists (principally those who promote the superiority of the white race) and militia violent extremists are assessed as presenting the most persistent and lethal threats.” The NSCDT’s scope includes what it terms ”anti-government” and “anti-authority” violent extremists, but includes any “individual or group who engages in violence — or incites imminent violence — in opposition to legislative, regulatory or other actions taken by the government.”

Yet a look at the March 2021 Threat Assessment, incorporated into the NSCDT, cites these recent examples of what might promote violence by extremists: “Newer sociopolitical developments — such as narratives of fraud in the recent general election, the emboldening impact of the violent breach of the U.S. Capitol, conditions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, and conspiracy theories.”

The federal government will partner with public and private entities, at home and abroad. Specifically included are the technology sector and academia.

The NSCDT goes on: “It means ensuring that Americans receive the type of civics education that promotes tolerance and respect for all and investing in policies and programs that foster civic engagement and inspire a shared commitment to American democracy.”

At the end, the NSCDT drops this grenade: “These efforts lead to a broader priority: enhancing faith in government and addressing the extreme polarization, fueled by a crisis of disinformation and misinformation often channeled through social media platforms, which can tear Americans apart and lead some to violence.”

Much in these NSCDT excerpts is belied by the discussion preceding this section and has links to show a pronounced targeting of right-leaning advocacy, the metastasizing cancel culture that silences views disdained by the administration and its allies in mainstream media, and in the technology, corporate, entertainment, and academic sectors. But the icing on the cake is the NSCDT’s “broader priority” of “enhancing faith in government.”

“Enhancing faith in government?” What of the Declaration of Independence’s proclamation of “certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”? What of the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution, which begins, “We the People of the United States?” What of Article IX — “The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people” — and Article X — “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the People” — of the Bill of Rights?

Add to this two famous admonitions from Supreme Court Justices Oliver Wendell Holmes and Louis D. Brandeis.

Dissenting in a free speech case, Holmes wrote,

Every idea is an incitement. It offers itself for belief, and if believed it is acted on unless some other belief outweighs it or some failure of energy stifles the movement at its birth. The only difference between the expression of an opinion and an incitement is the speaker’s enthusiasm for the result.

Significantly, Holmes was defending the right of free speech in a case involving the 1919 conviction of a socialist and his co-conspirators for “criminal anarchy.” They had published a manifesto explicitly stating as their goal “to destroy the parliamentary state and construct a new state of the organized producers which will function as the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.” That final phrase was the precise formulation of Russia’s Marxist–Leninist 1917 revolutionaries.

In perhaps his most famous opinion during his 25 years on the Supreme Court, Brandeis, dissenting in a 1928 wiretapping case, wrote,

Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when government’s purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but with little understanding.

Turning to overseas matters, there are immense military challenges:

(a) China may go to war to end Taiwan’s de facto independence;

(b) Russia may drive deeper into Ukraine and/or invade the provinces of the three Baltic members of NATO; and

(c) Israel may strike preemptively to kill Iran’s nuclear weapons program, if the Jewish state that Iran calls “Little Satan” concludes that America is empowering Iran’s march towards joining the nuclear club.

Nor can we ignore possible upcoming election time-bombs if between now and the 2022 campaign, post-election audits definitively show, in one or more of the contested states, that Donald Trump was victim of outcome-altering vote fraud. The Arizona audit in Maricopa County is being conducted under the most stringent recount procedures ever, following the methods adopted by gambling casinos to detect sophisticated cheaters. Georgia is investigating 2020 “election irregularities” — in part due to a November 2020 memo by a contractor documenting “massive election integrity failures and mismanagement” in Atlanta’s heavily Democratic Fulton County. While such findings could not reverse the results of 2020, they would cast a huge pall over the administration and its allies in Congress, the media, and their cultural allies elsewhere.

Finally, there is a 2022 event that could prove most tectonic of all: the November 2022 federal elections. Should Democrats keep the House and gain control of the Senate, the administration would claim virtual carte blanche to remake America. If a tectonic event favored the GOP, the result could trigger a massive GOP sweep of House and Senate races. The administration would effectively be restricted to rule by executive order, a course that is likely to encounter stiff judicial headwinds in the federal courts, where 234 Trump appointees can apply legislative laws and associated administrative rules to prevent rule by serial executive diktat.

Bottom Line. Perhaps the best analogy to what we face over the next 18 months resembles a clip from a 1950 all-time Hollywood classic, All About Eve: “Fasten your seat belts; it’s going to be a bumpy night.” Alas, in our case, we are talking about some 560 such nights — and days — 80 weeks until the Congress elected in 2022 convenes in early January 2023.

John C. Wohlstetter is author of Sleepwalking With the Bomb (Discovery Institute Press, Second Edition, 2014).

(This article was originally published in Newsmax.com: https://www.newsmax.com/adellenazarian/ukraine-nuclear-airline-justice/2021/06/11/id/1024766/ )

The Islamic Republic of Iran’s (IRI) gruesome and likely intentional shooting down of a Ukrainian airliner with Canadian passengers on board on January 8, 2020, was recently condemned by Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice as a “shameful” act of terrorism.

Now, it is time for the Biden administration to do the same.

Ukraine Airlines commercial airliner Flight PS752, a Boeing 737-800 headed for Kyiv, Ukraine, was eliminated with two surface-to-air M-1 missiles shortly after it took off from Tehran Imam Khomeini International Airport by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corp (IRGC). All 176 people on board the flight perished.

Despite the IRI’s attempts to falsely claim that flight PS2752 was shot down accidentally – going so far as blaming the incident on “human error” and saying the IRGC’s missile system was not fully recalibrated — it is widely believed that this heinous act of terror was carried out intentionally and that the IRI targeted this flight specifically because they believed Americans may have been on board.

The evening the flight was shot down, the IRI had been in the process of firing over a dozen missiles at two U.S. bases in Iraq in retaliation for the Trump administration’s assassination of IRGC-Quds Forces Major-General Qassem Soleimani.

The IRI likely thought the flight would make a great target for retaliation. Their attempts to get away with this act of terroristic murder has failed in the court of public opinion.

Now, an actual court has stood up to create a ruling on the case. Late last month, Ontario Superior Court Justice Edward Belobaba ruled that , “[t]he plaintiffs have established that the shooting down of Flight 752 by the defendants was an act of terrorism and constitutes ‘terrorist activity.” Belobaba added, “I find on a balance of probabilities that the missile attacks on Flight 752 were intentional and directly caused the deaths of all onboard.”

Iran Ministry Spokesperson Saeed Khatibzadeh said the Ontario Superior Court of Justice’s ruling that the IRI’s act constituted an act of terror was “shameful” and lacked evidence. “Everyone knows that the Canadian court is fundamentally not qualified to judge this aviation accident or potential negligence in an incident that is outside the territory and jurisdiction of Canada,” Khatibzadeh said. This response from the IRI is par for the course as any condemnation of the IRI or decision which does not advance their nefarious aims is condemned and dismissed as illegitimate or flawed.

The Iranian Americans for Liberty (IAL) — a U.S.-based advocacy group committed to strengthening and supporting “U.S. foreign policy and national security solutions that bring democracy, human rights accountability, and freedom of speech to Iranians living under the oppressive, totalitarian Islamic Republic Regime in Iran — issued a statement in support of the Canadian court’s decision and also called “on President Biden to publicly support Canada’s court decision and to cease and desist all discussions with the Islamic Republic of Iran until they take responsibility for murdering 176 souls.”

Several human rights agencies also condemned the IRI for this blatant act of terror. Two independent experts appointed by the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council said on February 23, 2020 that Iran committed multiple human rights violations in shooting downing UIA Flight PS752.

However, and as expected, no formal action was taken against the IRI.

In fact, this April, the UN went so far as to appoint – through a secret ballot – the IRI to a four-year term on its Commission on the Status of Women, the “principal global intergovernmental body exclusively dedicated to the promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women.” Hillel Neuer, executive director of the Geneva-based human rights group UN Watch, put it perfectly when he said “electing the Islamic Republic of Iran to protect women’s rights is like making an arsonist into the town fire chief.”

Similarly, allowing the IRI to get away with this heinous and intentional act of terrorism will only continue to enable the regime and its backers to undermine U.S. and international security. It is crucial that the Biden administration take swift action against the IRI for this crime against humanity and hold the IRI accountable for its malfeasance.

It’s important for President Biden to rethink the pending re-entry into the severely flawed Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), or Iran nuclear deal.

Rewarding the IRI for its endless acts of terror by rejoining this contract will only further embolden the mullahs in the country to continue their bad behavior.

Otherwise, the rumors that this is Barack Obama’s third term might actually stick.

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

PR Contact: Shana Forta
Email: Sforta@Goldiis.org

Washington, DC — June 16, 2021 — The Gold Institute for International Strategy is pleased to welcome Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East Simone Ledeen and retired NYPD Detective Investigator Mark Black as senior fellows. Ms. Ledeen’s extensive experience in the Middle East, at DoD and Treasury and Marc Black’s long-time focus in counter-terrorism, intelligence division and computer crimes will undoubtedly add greatly to the Institute’s impressive roster of fellows as well as our work and influence globally.

Simone Ledeen is a strategic influencer of complex, long-term initiatives and plans with global impact. Through her work, Ms. Ledeen has shaped the thinking of the nation’s senior-most leaders, including Members of Congress, other U.S. government officials, and partners abroad, on matters of defense, finance, telecom, and transportation. She is a trusted collaborator leveraging vast networks and superb communication skills to achieve multi-phased program development and implementation across industries.

Ms. Ledeen has served in various U.S. Government and business leadership positions, most recently as the presidentially-appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (DASD) for Middle East Policy where her leadership of U.S. defense policy spanned Bahrain, Egypt, Israel, Iran, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Palestinian Authority, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab Emirates and Yemen. Her experience on multiple oversees deployments influenced key counterterrorism activities, intelligence collection and analysis, as well as military information support operations involving cyber and disinformation, irregular warfare, direct action, sensitive special operations, and personnel recovery/hostage issues.

Ms. Ledeen’s work has also been shaped by her 20 years of experience prior to appointment with the Department of Defense. She draws on her work as Executive Director at Standard Chartered Bank managing multi-national financial crime compliance; Senior U.S. Treasury Representative to NATO’s International Security Assistance Force; Advisor to the Iraqi Ministry of Finance; and as a member of the Coalition Provisional Authority.

She is also a Visiting Fellow at the National Security Institute of George Mason University’s Antonin Scalia School of Law where she advocates to foster global security and facilitate international business. Ms. Ledeen has an MBA from the Bocconi University School of Management and a Bachelor of Arts degree with from Brandeis University. With a strong intercultural competency having lived several years abroad, she is fluent in Italian and conversational in French, Arabic, Polish, and Hebrew.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Marc Black served 20 years with the New York Police Department (NYPD), retiring June 2020 at the rank of Detective Investigator. His assignments included:

Counterterrorism Division

Responsible for conducting security and vulnerability assessments (SAVA) and threat assessments on critical infrastructure in New York City. Areas of concentration include houses of worship, utilities, and sports/entertainment venues. Liaison with the Fire Department of New York City Explosives Unit to establish secure logistic routes and venue security of locations which utilize energetic materials. Intermediary with Federal agencies which are working with foreign-friendly nations to establish counterterrorism programs for local law enforcement. Evaluator for the federal Nonprofit Security Grant Program (NSGP) in New York City.

Arson & Explosion Squad

Investigated major post blast and arson crimes associated with fire and blast fatalities in conjunction with the New York City Fire Department and federal and state law enforcement agencies to determine origin and cause. Examined post blast incidents caused by improvised explosive devices as well as explosive materials illegally obtained by individuals and criminal organizations. Investigated arsons and incendiary incidents to determine origin and cause.

Computer Crimes Squad

Investigated computer crimes and analyzed computer forensic information using accepted law enforcement techniques and technologies. Investigations: Computer intrusions/DOS/computer trespass, identity fraud, child exploitation, Internet scams, and financial crimes.

Intelligence Division

Synchronized communications of international terrorist incidents with New York City Police investigators Overseas Liaison Units. Coordinated crisis management programs through the Fusion Center with the New York City Police Department and federal law enforcement agencies, FEMA, U.S. Military, and Office of Emergency Management (New York City).

Education:

B.S. Business Management, Keene State College

Attended University of Haifa, Haifa Israel

M.S. Transportation Management, NY State University Maritime College

M.S. Security Protection, John Jay College of Criminal Justice

(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.