It's a frightening irony. This September 11th, we will mourn 3,000 innocent lives snuffed out during the worst terrorist attack on our homeland. And at the very same time, our President and a minority of Congress is ramming through a catastrophic deal that will provide hundreds of billions of dollars and a path to nuclear weapons to the very same Iranian regime that planned and facilitated the horror perpetrated on our soil on September 11, 2001. Instead of learning from our recent painful history, we are about to enter into a disastrous deal that assures that we will suffer more 9-11s.
Throughout this summer, while Congress was reviewing the Iran deal, no one even mentioned Iran's complicity in 9-11. We must contemplate this now. Those Congresspersons supporting the deal must reverse course in order to prevent new 9-11s that wreak even more massive fatalities on the American public.
Iran's key role in the 9-11 attacks was detailed in the U.S. District Court's Findings of Fact in
Havlish v. bin Laden, et al - a case brought by 9-11 victims against al Qaeda, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Hezbollah and numerous other Iranian and Iranian-backed entities. The case was the culmination of years of investigation prompted by information initially uncovered by the 9-11 Commission. Overwhelming evidence of Iran's complicity included testimony from experts and a top former Iranian regime insider, and damning documents such as a May 2001 memo of behalf of Iran's then and still current Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei discussing communications regarding al Qaeda's then upcoming attack.
Iran first started planning 9-11 back in the mid-1980s. At that time, Iran's leaders set up a terrorist task force comprised of top members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and Iran's security service (MOIS), to plan "unconventional attacks" against the U.S. Iran's terrorist task force devised the plot to crash Boeing civilian airliners into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and the White House - and additional plots to attack the U.S. electric grid, and attack us with dirty bombs.
Iran called these plans "Shaitan dar Atash," Farsi for "Satan in flames" or "Satan in hell." According to the Iranian regime, the U.S. is "Satan."
This September 11th, when we remember our brave American firemen and police officers who ran into the burning World Trade Center towers to try to save people, let's also remember that Iran's terrorism task force plots how to set fire to innocent Americans.
Al Qaeda joined Iran in planning 9-11 almost a decade after Iran's terrorism task force devised the plot. In 1993, al Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri met Iran's master terrorist Imad Mughniyah, Iranian officials and Iran Revolutionary Guard Corp officials in Khartoum, Sudan to launch an Iran-Hezbollah-al Qaeda alliance of joint cooperation and support for terrorism activities. The Iran-Hezbollah-al Qaeda alliance worked together to perpetrate a string of terrorist strikes against the United States throughout the 1990s, including the bombings of Khobar Towers, the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the U.S.S. Cole - and 9-11.
Among other things, Iran purchased a Boeing 757-767 flight simulator to train the 9-11 terrorists.
Iran and its proxy Hezbollah also made the travel arrangements, and arranged for visas and passports for the 9-11 terrorists, and accompanied the 9-11 terrorists on flights.
Iran and its proxy Hezbollah also ran training camps for al Qaeda terrorists, including a separate training camp for al Qaeda's Saudi nationals.
Also, after 9-11, Iran helped al Qaeda operatives and al Qaeda leaders' families - including Osama bin Laden's sons - flee from Afghanistan. Iran gave al Qaeda operatives a safe haven in Iran, which al Qaeda then used as a base of operations to direct attacks against our American troops in Iraq. Hundreds of Americans were murdered in those attacks.
In addition to 9-11, Iran plotted other attacks on U.S. soil. In 2011, Iran was caught attempting to hire a Mexican drug cartel to assassinate the Saudi ambassador (at a public restaurant where innocent Americans would die) and bomb the Saudi and Israeli embassies, in Washington DC.
Congress's failure to stop the catastrophic Iran deal means that America is likely to suffer many more attacks that are even worse than the horror we experienced on 9-11 fourteen years ago. Iran will undoubtedly use at least a portion of the hundreds of billions of dollars it will attain as a result of the Iran deal to carry out more of its "Satan in flames" plans.
We must remind Congress of Iran's major role in the horrific 9-11 attack on our soil. We cannot afford to give Iran the wherewithal to attack us again.
Morton A. Klein is the President of the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA). Elizabeth Berney, Esq. is ZOA's Director of Special Projects.
This article was published by
Washington Jewish Week and may be found
here. 
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