Who sells weapons to terrorists? To find some answers, Pope Francis looks east of Iraq
Speaking at the general audience and referring to his recent trip to Iraq, Pope Francis asked himself a question: "Who sells weapons to terrorists?". A strong question, to which the Pontiff would like someone to answer.
Without claiming to be exhaustive or satisfying the Holy Father's curiosity, to find any clues, at least as regards the Middle East, but not only, just look east of Iraq, or neighboring Iran, one of the main supporters of the international terrorism.
Remaining only current, the Middle East today is making enormous strides towards peace and stability, especially thanks to the Abrahamic Accords promoted by the previous US administration of Donald Trump. Agreements that have upset, in a positive sense, the Region, allowing dialogue and peace between countries that have fought each other for years, with the support of a key player : Saudi Arabia. Riyadh, which has not yet normalized diplomatic relations with Jerusalem, has in fact supported this process, understanding that the years spent supporting Salafist jihadist terrorism have been a very serious mistake.
On the other hand, those who have not yet recognized this error are precisely the Islamic Republic of Iran. Tehran is the first opponent of the Abrahamic Agreements and it is the country that, since 1984, has been classified by the United States as the first supporter of international terrorism. For these reasons, for years Iran has been included in the blacklist of the Financial Action Task Force , a world-renowned intergovernmental organization – also known as FATF – which advises against investing in Iran, precisely because of the risk that money will be laundered in order to support international terrorism.
According to the American think tank Foundation for Defense Democracies , Iran spends at least $ 16 billion annually to support various international terrorist organizations (primarily Hezbollah, Iraqi militias, Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Syrian regime).
In May 2019, Hands Off Cain presented a study by Professor Baldassare entitled “The cost that, in terms of lower GDP and employment, the Iranian people pay for the regime's foreign funding of Islamic jihad. First econometric estimates " , which not only denounced how the regime spent over 8 billion a year just to finance Hezbollah, Hamas and the Pasdaran (to which the funds given in Damascus should be added), but also the cost of this on Iranian GDP. spending, or the money stolen from the country's economic and social development.
To this support for Iranian direct and indirect proxies, we should add the support that Tehran offers, not officially declared but now infamous, to Salafist jihadist organizations, theoretically enemies of the Iranian regime. In this sense we are talking above all about Iranian support for al-Qaeda , a pact of terror that has been going on for almost thirty years now.
This is why, after his meeting with al Sistani – who has always been an opponent of the Khomeinist version of Shiism – Pope Francis should go to Lebanon and offer his strong support to the many religious, such as the Maronite Patriarch Bechara al-Rahi, who in recent days is they are raising courageous and solitary champions of the fight against Iranian influence in the country, openly opposing Hezbollah, a terrorist organization in the service of Tehran, which refuses to lay down its arms (despite the UN Resolution 1701 expressly provides for this).
Without claiming to have been exhaustive on a dramatic and complex issue such as the financing of international terrorism, the mere contrast of the Iranian clerical regime would already be a huge step forward to counter – in the Middle East and in the world – the scourge of Islamic terrorism.
The post Who sells weapons to terrorists? To find some answers Pope Francis look east of Iraq appeared first on Atlantico Quotidiano .
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Atlantico Quotidiano at the URL http://www.atlanticoquotidiano.it/quotidiano/chi-vende-armi-ai-terroristi-per-trovare-qualche-risposta-papa-francesco-guardi-a-est-delliraq/ on Fri, 12 Mar 2021 05:01:00 +0000.