Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif, who led his country’s delegation to nuclear talks in Geneva in November, paid a visit Monday to the gravesite of Imad Moughniyeh, the “mastermind” behind a string of attacks in Beirut in the early 1980s, including the bombings of the U.S. Embassy and the U.S. Marines barracks.
Mugniyeh, who was part of the Hezbollah terror group, was killed by a car bomb in Damascus in 2008, possibly by Israel.
Zarif was hailed for his role in brokering the Geneva deal, whose details were finalized on Sunday. The next day, Zarif laid at the wreath at one of America’s worst enemies. The message was unmistakable: Iran remains utterly committed to its decades-long campaign of war and terror against the U.S., despite recent negotiations. There is no indication that the Iranian regime, even under President Hassan Rouhani, will change its hostile posture.
Rouhani celebrated the Geneva deal as a “surrender” on Tuesday, and Zarif’s gesture celebrates it as a victory for Iran’s destructive tactics. It is possible that Rouhani and Zarif are trying to appease Iran’s most extreme religious leaders–who oppose any negotiation–by placing the Geneva agreement in a militant context. Yet the most basic interpretation of Zarif’s gesture is that the regime favors continued terror and hostility to the U.S.