Should Republicans go ahead and add Supreme Court Justices to head off Democrats

Iran's most immediate threat is by hosting our enemies

Peter Brooks:

THE most immediate threat Iran poses to American national security isn't its nuclear (weapons) program. It's the safe haven Tehran is giving al Qaeda terrorists, who are planning and directing jihad across the globe.

If the United States and its allies in the War on Terror don't take firm action against Iranian support to al Qaeda, the price in blood and treasure attributable to Osama bin Laden's killers — in Iraq and elsewhere — will continue to soar.

Shockingly, it's been long forgotten that Iran became home to some of al Qaeda's most wanted after the fall 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. Tehran admitted as much, claiming that al Qaeda operatives were under "house arrest" and would be tried.

Of course, nothing of the sort happened . . .

So al Qaeda "refugees" from Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, North Africa and Europe — including senior military commander Saif al Adel, three of Osama's sons and spokesman Sulaiman Abu Ghaith — now operate freely from Iran.

In fact, just last week, the German monthly magazine Cicero, citing Western intelligence sources, claimed that as many as 25 al Qaeda thugs are living in Iran under the protection of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

Cicero cites a "top-ranking" Western intelligence official saying, "This is not incarceration or house arrest. They [al Qaeda members] can move around as they please." The IRGC even provides logistics help and training to al Qaeda.

Iran and al Qaeda have been tight for some time. The 9/11 Commission said that al Qaeda passed freely though Iran before 9/11, including at least eight of the 14 "muscle" hijackers that commandeered the four ill-fated planes. After the USS Cole bombing in 2000, Iranian officials approached al Qaeda to propose a partnership for future anti-U.S. attacks. (Osama nixed the offer for fear of alienating Saudi supporters.)

Al Qaeda also collaborated with Iran in the 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. And U.S. intercepts caught al Qaeda operatives in Iran communicating with terrorists in Saudi Arabia before the 2003 attacks there.

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Repeated calls for Iran to turn over al Qaeda members to their countries of origin have gone nowhere. It's time to stop giving Tehran a pass.

Tough, multilateral economic sanctions against Iran are long overdue. Iran's economy has been on the skids for a while; Tehran would feel the pain if the United Nations — or simply its major trading partners, such as Germany, France and Italy — put the squeeze on.

The sound of Tehran's high-pitched squeals whenever economic sanctions are even mentioned — usually over its nuclear (weapons) program — seems to indicate that these measures are something the mullahs would rather avoid.

There's no guarantee that sanctions will get Tehran to swear off its terrorist ways. But, because Iran's economy is so centralized, trade gives the mullahs pocket change to cause trouble at home and across the globe.

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Iran is at war with the US. Al Qaeda is just one of its proxies. Iran is an enemy country and should be treated as such.