The good thing about octogenarians is that so many lose their filter. That holds true even in the Islamic Republic of Iran. Consider the latest interview that Mohsen Rafiqdoust, minister of the Revolutionary Guards from 1982 to 1988, gave with Didban Iran.
Rafiqdoust has been a pivotal figure in Islamic Republic history. During the 1979 Islamic Revolution, he was Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s bodyguard and later joined and, indeed, helped institutionalize the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Many IRGC members resented that he climbed to top ranks without any service in the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq War. His Didban interview gives insight into what he did instead.
If [Mohsen] Rafiqdoust is telling the truth, then the French surrendered instead of standing up to terrorism and blackmail.
He brags about his involvement in the assassination of several shah-era Iranian officials in Europe, including the 1984 Paris assassination of Gholam-Ali Oveissi, the commander of the Imperial Iranian Armed Forces under the shah; the 1991 killing outside of Paris of Shapur Bakhtiar, the shah’s last prime minister; and the murder the following year of Fereydoun Farrokhzad, a prominent intellectual, in Bonn, Germany.
Not every operation was a success. About the Islamic Republic’s first failed attempt on Bakhtiar’s life in 1980, he said, “I was the commander for that attack,” bragging, “They even stated this during the trial [in France].” He then related negotiations with French President François Mitterrand about the release of Anis Naqqash, a Lebanese citizen, arrested in connection with the attempted assassination. When Naqqash began a hunger strike, the French wanted it over to avoid unwarranted attention. Mitterrand offered to release Naqqash after two weeks. Rafiqdoust related how he warned the French president, “Okay, if after two weeks, an embassy of yours blew up or they hijacked one of your planes, don’t complain.” He added, “And then they released them, and they came back.” If Rafiqdoust is telling the truth, then the French surrendered instead of standing up to terrorism and blackmail. Mitterrand pardoned Naqqash and four others on July 27, 1990. The French government then offered two million francs to a police officer who received a disabling injury during the attack.
The Iranian regime succeeded in its effort to murder Bakhtiar in 1991, just over a year after the pardon of Naqqash. Two of the assailants escaped to Iran, but a third—Ali Vakili-Rad—was caught in Switzerland, and tried and imprisoned in France. The French acquitted a fourth suspect who was related to former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani. Just a few years later, though, the French released him in exchange for a French journalist arrested in Iran. Vakili-Rad received a hero’s welcome in Iran. Extortion worked. When countries like France release Iranians assassins, the Iranian regime interprets the deal as a green light to try again. Rafiqdoust humiliates France by bragging and laughing about how he extorted the French government.
Will Berlin demand Rafiqdoust’s extradition or sever ties with Iran over what is a clear case of state-sanctioned murder of a dissident?
In the same interview, Rafiqdoust brags about contracting Basque terrorists to operate. “These are people who are militant. We said, ‘There is this guy we want to assassinate.’ They said, ‘We will charge this much.’ We said, ‘We’ll pay it.’” He specifically bragged about Farrokhzad’s assassination.
The challenge now for Berlin is that the German government never formally ended its investigation into his murder. Will Berlin demand Rafiqdoust’s extradition or sever ties with Iran over what is a clear case of state-sanctioned murder of a dissident?
Madrid also may need to open investigations into the links between Tehran and Basque terrorists, especially because it accepted the claims of Iranian and Lebanese groups claiming responsibility for targeting Iranian dissidents on Spanish soil.
The Islamic Republic of Iran has undermined law and order in Europe since its founding. Its wave of assassinations on European soil may have slowed since the heyday of Rafiqdoust’s tenure in the 1980s, but it has not stopped. Nothing about the Iranian regime’s behavior suggests that it has changed for the better, and nothing about European policies suggests that appeasement has worked.
