Terror comes to the terrorists

We take at face value the State Department saying that the U.S. had nothing to do with the bombings of a memorial ceremony in Iran for assassinated terror master Gen. Qasem Soleimani. And we likewise accept that Washington also believes that Israel was not involved in the attack yesterday, which killed more than 100 people and wounded many more among the crowds gathered to commemorate the fourth anniversary of Soleimani’s deserved death.

Yesterday’s attack was terrorism, aiming to kill and injure and, yes, terrorize, large numbers of civilians of the kind practiced extensively by Iran and its proxies like Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis as well as shadowy Shia groups in Iraq.

The Iranian people are the victims here, feeling the same horror, dread and awful fear that their government brings to people through its sponsorship of mass terror. We would hope this tragedy might help persuade the mullahs to end their support of terror, but it seems unlikely

As to the perpetrators, this was not the stuff of the United States and Israel even though Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said: “We tell the criminal America and Zionist regime that you will pay a very high price for the crimes you have committed and will regret it.” The ayatollahs know it wasn’t the U.S. or Israel.

So who did it? The bloodthirsty fanatics of ISIS is a good bet, or it could have been Iranian dissents or even Syrian foes striking out at Iran for keeping brutal dictator Bashar al-Assad in power.

The U.S. and Israel do use lethal force when warranted, but it is targeted and focused, as happened four years ago yesterday when Soleimani, the commander of Tehran’s Quds Force, a prime backer of terror, bought the hot end of several missiles from a U.S. Air Force Reaper drone while he was at the Baghdad airport.

Last week, Israel dispatched another Iranian general, Seyed Razi Mousavi, also a high level commander of the Quds Force. He was in Damascus when he was hit by an IDF airstrike. nd the day before the terror massacre at Soleimani’s tomb in the Iranian city of Kerman, Israel blasted Hamas boss Saleh al-Arouri, one of the planners of the Oct. 7 attack, who thought he was safe hiding in Beirut, far away from Gaza.

In these strikes the Pentagon and the IDF were exceedingly careful and cautious to try to only zap the bad guy and his entourage, quite the opposite of what the terrorists like Soleimani and Mousavi and al-Arouri and their followers strive for. Yesterday’s carnage was barbaric terrorism.

Will Iran now realize the danger terrorism poses to everyone? After 9/11, Iran did cooperate with the U.S. as we went after Al-Qaeda, which had also attacked the Iranians. But making common cause against terror is hard to do when you are the main sponsor of terror gangs like Hamas and Hezbollah.

Israel will finish off Hamas, as they must. As for Hezbollah, they have mostly stayed out of the current fight since Hamas launched the Oct. 7 attack against Israel. Even Israel’s assassination of al-Arouri in Hezbollah territory in Beirut was careful not to hit any Hezbollah members.

For decades, Iran has brought the world terror attacks. Now that terror has come home to attack them.

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