8 | SEPTEMBER 9 • 2021 

PURELY COMMENTARY

continued from page 6

extensive connections with 
Iran’s regional proxies, like 
Hezbollah in Lebanon.

THE TALIBAN AND IRAN
In the past, many analysts 
have scorned the contention 
that there could be a 
strategic connection between 
the austere Sunni Islam 
adhered to by the Taliban 
and the Shi’ite millenarian 
Islam that defines the Tehran 
regime. It is also true that 
the Taliban and the Iranians 
have come to blows in the 
distant past, as evidenced in 
the Afghan city of Mazar-i-
Sharif in 1998 following the 
kidnapping of a group of 
Iranian diplomats by Taliban 
fighters.
Even so, what unites them 
is, in the last analysis, more 
important than what divides 
them. Taliban delegations 
have visited Iran on at least 
two occasions this year, in 
January and in July, with the 
outgoing foreign minister 
Javad Zarif recently praising 
their “noble … jihad against 
the foreign occupiers.” 
In part, the Iranians are 
simply betting on the right 
horse, correctly deducing 
that further conflict with 
the Taliban is unnecessary 
given that the Taliban are 
once more the masters of 
Afghanistan. But more 
significantly, they share the 
common goal of banishing 
the United States and its 
allies from the region, 
including the State of Israel 
and, one assumes, those 
conservative Gulf Arab states 
that have made their peace 
with the Jewish state.
Which brings me back to 
Iran’s new cabinet. It is not 
surprising that the Islamic 

Republic’s new president, 
Ebrahim Raisi — a sadist 
who, as a regime prosecutor 
in the 1980s, supervised 
beatings, rapes and mass 
executions of prisoners — 
would appoint a bunch of 
thugs to his cabinet. But 
what is alarming is the 
silence of Western states on 
the unmistakable message 
that this cabinet sends. For 
this is not an occasion to 
defer to the principle of not 
commenting on political 
appointments in other 
countries.
Iran’s new defense minister 
is Ahmad Vahidi, who is 
returning to the post for the 
second time in his career, 
having previously occupied 
it during the term of the 
Holocaust-denying former 
Iranian President Mahmoud 
Ahmadinejad. The vice 
president for economic 
development is Mohsen 
Rezaei, a fierce devotee 
of the Islamic Republic’s 
founder, Ayatollah Khomeini, 
and the commander for 
17 years of Iran’s Islamic 
Revolutionary Guards Corps 
(IRGC). Both Vahidi and 
Rezaei are fugitives from 
justice — specifically, for 
their roles in the July 1994 
Iranian-sponsored bombing 

of the AMIA Jewish Center 
in the Argentine capital 
Buenos Aires, the bloodiest 
act of antisemitic terrorism 
in more than half a century, 
in which 85 people lost their 
lives and more than 300 
were wounded. Both of them 
were among the subjects 
of six “red notices” that 
were issued in connection 
with the AMIA atrocity by 
Interpol, the international 
law-enforcement agency, in 
2007. 
More than a quarter of 
a century after the AMIA 
bombing, Vahidi and Rezaei 
sit in Tehran, secure and 
stony-faced, serving a daily 
reminder that justice has 
never been delivered to 
those who died or lost their 
loved ones on that terrible 
morning in Buenos Aires.
Poking the international 
community in the eye 
by placing two terrorists 
in the cabinet isn’t the 
ultimate goal here, though. 
Like all authoritarian 
states, the Iranian regime 
enjoys political theater, 
bloodthirsty rhetoric and the 
grandstanding that goes with 
it, but these are a means to 
an end. Vahidi and Rezaei 
are in the cabinet because 
there is a job to do, and 

Raisi — and behind him, 
Supreme Leader Ayatollah 
Ali Khamenei — has judged 
that they are the right men 
to do it.
Across the Middle East and 
the Islamic world, extremist 
regimes and terrorist groups 
are rejoicing in the fact 
that the U.S. presence and 
reputation in their region 
is a shadow of what it was 
just 10 years ago. They are 
not wrong; the options 
of America are largely 
restricted to diplomacy and 
sanctions. In that light, there 
is no reason for the Biden 
administration to continue 
its talks with the Iranians in 
Vienna over their nuclear 
program unless it wants to 
look even more gullible in 
the eyes of America’s Islamist 
adversaries. 
It also needs to review 
the existing sanctions on 
Iran and extend these where 
necessary. Should Vahidi 
or Rezaei surface as official 
guests of a U.S. ally — 
Turkey being the obvious 
example — then the United 
States should make its 
displeasure known.
None of these moves 
can be said to be game-
changers. But they speak to 
the lack of a broader vision 
for the Middle East on 
the part of successive U.S. 
administrations, save for the 
ambition of getting out of the 
region as quickly as possible. 
As McMaster reminded us 
amid the carnage of Kabul 
Airport, the region won’t let 
us go so easily. 

Ben Cohen is a New York City-based 

journalist and author who writes 

a weekly column on Jewish and 

international affairs for JNS.

ISIS K fighters 
in Afghanistan

SCREENSHOT/JNS

