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Rafsanjani Is No Moderate

(Commentary) Michael Rubin - When former Iranian President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani first won the presidency back in 1989, the West was optimistic. There was hope that Iran would turn a new page, and that the revolutionary ayatollahs would move to normalize relations with the international community. But it was not to be. While Rafsanjani spoke publicly of pragmatism, privately he revived Iran's covert nuclear program - of which he claims to be the father today - and played a crucial role in ordering the assassinations of Iranian dissidents abroad. Some of the most spectacular Iranian terror attacks - such as the 1994 bombing of the Jewish community center in Buenos Aires - not only occurred under Rafsanjani's watch but also with his direct authorization. It was Rafsanjani who, on Dec. 14, 2001, suggested that an Iranian nuclear strike on Israel might be foreseeable, since one nuclear weapon could annihilate Israel, while Iran would be large enough to absorb any retaliation. The problem in the Islamic Republic today is not one personality or another, but rather the system of government and the ideology to which it subscribes. The writer is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
2013-05-13 00:00:00
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