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April
4, 2002, 8:30 a.m.
The
Enemy Within
Target
terrorist assets inside the U.S.
By Amir A.
Afkhami
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 ictims
of the 1983 bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut filed a $5 billion-dollar
lawsuit against Iran on March 7 accusing Tehran of sponsoring the attack.
Their lawsuit follows two years after Terry Anderson's successful $341
million judgment against Iran in March of 2000 for his treatment during
his nearly seven years of Beirut captivity at the hands of Iranian-supported
Hezbullah.
Ostensibly
the payments for these punitive awards will come from Iranian assets frozen
during the Islamic Revolution. Anne Dammarell, injured in the 1983 embassy
bombing and a plaintiff in the new lawsuit, said the aim was to "bring
the guilty to justice." While seizing Iranian state assets might seem
the most direct way to collect damages from a government that the state
department calls "the most active state sponsor of terrorism,"
it does little to punish the real perpetrators of these crimes or to change
the behavior of the terror-sponsoring governments. Foggy Bottom has also
been skittish of setting any precedent that could lead to the seizure of
U.S. assets in kangaroo courts abroad.
More
effective alternatives exist, though. Rather than seize state assets,
the U.S. government should target the holdings of individuals responsible
for terror. Osama Bin Laden is perhaps the most famous example. But many
Iranian officials would be equally attractive targets for assets seizures.
In 1997, a German court found that a committee of high-level Iranian officials
— Supreme Leader Khamenei, former Intelligence Chief Fallahian, former
Foreign Minister Velayati, and former president Rafsanjani — directly
issued orders for the murder of Iranian dissidents in Europe.
Many
Iranian officials possess substantial overseas assets. The quintessential
target for a class-action lawsuit is Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, the
former "moderate" who now heads the unelected "expediency
council." Rafsanjani is perhaps the second-most powerful man in the
Iran after Khamenei. Rafsanjani was one of the founding fathers and supporters
of Hezbullah in Lebanon. Throughout the 1980s, anyone wishing to address
the plight of American hostages in Lebanon had to go through Rafsanjani.
Indeed, Rafsanjani was at the heart of the Reagan administration's Iran-Contra
arms-for-hostages scandal.
Targeting
individuals will play popularly among the vast majority of the Iranian
populace who remain pro-American and estranged from unelected leaders
they see as corrupt. Known disparagingly amongst the Iranian populace
as "his red-robed highness" or Shah Akbar, Rafsanjani has amassed
a billion-dollar empire with holdings in the arms trade, and investments
in the energy sector. The Rafsanjan Cooperative (RPPC), whose shares are
held by Rafsanjani and his family, is one of the largest exporters of
pistachios yielding annual revenues in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Rafsanjani's diverse financial holdings are rumored to include majority
shares, through a holding company, in the Los Angeles Century Plaza Hotel
and other real-estate ventures throughout North America.
Rafsanjani's
involvement in unconventional weapons and terrorism is an accepted fact.
During his tenure as President, he named his son Mohsen Hashemi to head
the Shihab ballistic-missile-development project and to take charge of
the acquisition of Russian submarines and nuclear reactors for Iran. Rafsanjani
is a defendant in a Belgian lawsuit charging him to be responsible for
the torturing of political prisoners. In addition, in December 2001, Rafsanjani
called for the nuclear destruction of Israel and has warned of the day
when "the agents of world arrogance [the United States] would pay
dearly." With this track record, there is ample evidence for the
administration to seek out and freeze Rafsanjani's holdings internationally
and for individual Americans wronged by to sue his assets. This action
would be the best means of punishing the guilty and show the Iranian people
that we are not against them but against the criminal and unelected elements
that dominate the Islamic Republic.
— Afkhami is the Gaines graduate fellow
in Iranian history at Yale University.
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