Iran and Argentina 1992, 1994 and 2024

Argentina’s highest criminal court made a landmark ruling this week. “On Friday, Argentina’s highest criminal court found Iran responsible for ordering the 1992 terrorist attack on Israel’s embassy in Buenos Aires and the 1994 terrorist attack on the Argentinian Israelite Mutual Association Jewish center.”

This is from a joint statement of the US Chairs of the Senate and House Foreign Relations/Affairs Committees which goes onto say: “We praise the enormous courage of the Argentinian officials and judges working to hold Iran and its associates accountable and deliver transparency to the victims. The United States must stand with those pursuing justice and against growing efforts to harass them.”

These two attacks in Argentina killed over 100 people. The same organizations were found by a US District Court in Washington, D.C., on May 30, 2003, to have carried out the bombing of the US Embassy in Beirut in 1982 killing 63 people. The court ruled again it was carried out by Hezbollah with the approval and financing of senior Iranian officials.

Why is this relevant now?

Iran used as the pretext for its attack, a recent strike in Damascus on a building that is part of its diplomatic compound in Damascus. The attack was targeted against Mohammed Reza Zahedi, the top commander in the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) for Lebanon and Syria along with his lieutenant and about five other officers. The Quds Force itself is designated as a terrorist organization by Israel, Canada, the United States, Saudi Arabia, and Bahrain and more importantly he was Iran’s coordinator with Hezbollah, Iran’s proxy, designated a terrorist organization by most which carried out the Argentinian and Beirut Embassy bombings.

Iran did not carry out its unprecedented, failed attack on Israel due to a principled issue with Israel attacking an Embassy – Iran has a long history of doing the same albeit in a non-precise way aimed at killing maximum civilians as opposed to a surgical strike against terrorists and their backers.

Iran’s attack on Israel was a calculated escalation of a war it has been carefully controlling, only this time it moved away from its usual practice of hiding behind proxies.

Whether Israel decides to retaliate is a decision far above my pay grade, but whether it does or does not in no way changes the view that Iran, through its direct training of Hamas fighters who led the 7/10 attack, their control of Hezbollah and the Houthis, and their failed act of open war is the lead protagonist in the last 6 terrible months and is directly responsible for the terrible damage done to all in the region including the innocent Gazan’s cynically used as human shields.

This week showed how the moderate Arab countries, western nations and Israel can collaborate and I hope it is a positive sign for the future.