AMIA Bombing is a Reminder of Iran’s Malign Presence in the Western Hemisphere

Even though there has been ample time and evidence linking the bombing to Iran, justice still has not been served for the 85 men, women and children whose lives were taken on that fateful day and the hundreds more that were injured.

One individual who bravely sought to expose the truth behind the 1994 AMIA bombing and the subsequent cover-up was Argentine Special Prosecutor Alberto Nisman. According to the Wall Street Journal, “Using legal wiretaps, Nisman … built a case that President Cristina Kirchner’s government had a covert agreement with Iran to wipe Tehran’s fingerprints off the AMIA attack in exchange for Iranian oil and reopening Iran’s market to Argentine grain and beef.” Just a week after Nisman filed a criminal complaint against members of the Kirchner government, he was found dead by a gunshot wound in his apartment.

Though Nisman’s death still remains unsolved, Argentine federal appeals court prosecutor Ricardo Saenz ruled out the possibility of suicide and many allege the prosecutor was murdered by Iranian and/or Kirchner government agents to derail his investigation into AMIA bombing and cover-up.

Even though Nisman’s investigation was halted, investigations into his death, the 1994 AMIA bombing and subsequent cover-up and Iran’s growing influence in the Western Hemisphere continued. Just last month, Joseph Humire, the executive director of the Center for a Secure Free Society (SFS), published a Special Report titled “After Nisman: How the death of a prosecutor revealed Iran’s growing influence in the Americas.”

Of Humire’s report, the Wall Street Journal said:

“[Joseph Humire] uses thousands of documents and legal wiretaps released to the public to show how the prosecutor’s death eliminated a key stumbling block for Iran and ‘paved the way for [it] to move into a new phase of its information and intelligence operations in Latin America.’ If the theocracy, which is the No. 1 state-sponsor of terrorism in the world, did not murder Nisman, it was the biggest beneficiary of his death.

“It’s not hard to see how the end of sanctions on Iran – triggering the liberation of $150 billion in assets and the reopening of international economic channels – will increase Iran’s penetration of the Western Hemisphere.”

Toby Dershowitz, Vice President for Government Relations and Strategy at the non-partisan Foundation for Defense of Democracies, calls on the Obama Administration to hold Tehran responsible for its actions.

As Dershowitz notes this today in a column in Real Clear World:

“The Obama administration has long said it will hold Iran accountable for acts of terrorism. It now has a chance to prove it: Interpol red notices for five former Iranian officials found culpable in Argentina’s deadliest terrorist attack are about to come up for renewal.

“Iran continues to engage in nefarious activities in our hemisphere, and we ignore this at our peril. Not renewing the red notices would mean that justice will be denied to the victims of the AMIA bombings and to their families. It would mean that terrorists will get away with mass murder. President Obama should see that as a red line — and not let it be crossed.”