Foxes guarding hens

Editorial

In a development that begs visions of foxes guarding hen houses or inmates running asylums, Argentina and Iran have entered into an agreement to jointly investigate the 1994 bombing of the Jewish community centre in Buenos Aires.

Few observers doubt that the bombing, which killed 85 people and injured hundreds more, was an act of Iranian terror. A special prosecutor appointed by the Argentine president Nestor Kirchner more than a decade after a notoriously botched police investigation, concluded that the attack was perpetrated by Hezbollah, and planned and financed by Iranian government officials.
However, no one has been held responsible for the attack, partly because of the Keystone Kops investigation that followed the explosion and what Kirchner said was an Argentine government cover-up. Suspects Argentina has sought to interrogate include a former Iranian president and that country’s current defence minister.

The announcement last week that Argentina and Iran would cooperate on a new investigation drew incredulous reaction from world leaders.

The government of Canada, which lists Iran as a state sponsor of terrorism, expressed concern in a statement by Foreign Minister John Baird about “the impartiality of any investigation into the 1994 terrorist bombing … that includes Iran, given there is credible evidence to suggest that Iran was implicated in this act of terrorism. We are concerned that it appears Iran will now be investigating itself.”

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had a different take entirely.

“We think studying this issue should definitely result in transparency and finding the reality,” he was quoted by the Fars news agency as saying.

While the state of Israel, Canada and other democracies insist that Iran be isolated on the international stage, Argentina is choosing not only to engage with the terrorist state but, far more grievously, to invite Iran to participate in a judicial undertaking that will be, by definition, a sham.

If Iran is not guilty of the crime, why on earth would either the Iranian or Argentine governments think that Iran has a role to play in the investigation? If Iran is guilty, how could such an investigation have any legitimacy at all?

^TOP