Home inContext Iran’s Take on Terror

Iran’s Take on Terror

Samara Greenberg
SOURCE

Over the weekend Iran held the world’s first ever two day conference on fighting terrorism, the International Conference on Global Fight against Terrorism. The event, arranged under the slogan of “A World Without Terrorism,” brought together senior officials from 60 countries and representatives of various international bodies, including the UN.

In a written massage, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon praised Tehran for holding the conference, which he said was a major initiative against worldwide terrorism. “The UN has an important role in fighting terrorism and I hope that the Tehran conference can attain great goals,” his message said.

A cartoon from the conference website.

Ki-moon’s letter is outrageous. A quick look around the conference website tells us what the gathering was really about. For example, in the opening message, Iranian Supreme Leader Khamenei stated: “The Zionist regime…has continued shamelessly and openly its terrorist acts outside and inside Palestine…. Another example is the United States that has a long list of terrorist behaviors…” On another part of the site, Khamenei is quoted as saying similar statements, such as: “the creation and growth of the wild and blind terrorism is basically the result of the wicked policy of America and England.”

In his speech at the conference, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad claimed that the United States manufactured the September 11 attacks and the Holocaust to boost its economy, spread panic, and eliminate Muslims worldwide. Moreover, the conference site features several inflammatory cartoons, such as one that depicts an Israeli soldier with devil’s horns near a bath of blood.

The weekend’s conference was all part of Tehran’s scheme to mask its complicity in all forms of terrorism and instead blame the U.S., Britain, and Israel as the cause of the global problem. Indeed, the Iranian regime is the embodiment of terrorism. From using terror tactics to quell its own people into submission to funding Hezbollah, Hamas, and others in their terrorist acts, the Iranian regime’s terrorist reach extends across the globe. That the UN’s Ban Ki-moon congratulated Tehran for its conference is abhorrent. Tehran is the problem, not the solution.