As AFN has noted, the Biden administration issued "official condolences" to the Iranian regime on Monday following the weekend helicopter crash that claimed the lives of the country's foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, and president, Ebrahim Raisi – the so-called "Butcher of Tehran" who was one of the main architects of a 1988 massacre in Iran that killed around 5,000 regime opponents.
"The Butcher of Tehran is not a loss, so I don't see why our government should be issuing condolences," responds Dr. Susan Michael, the U.S. director of the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ). "What we should be doing is providing encouragement to the opposition and to the expats to build opposition to this horrible regime in Iran and bring it down."
Unfortunately, she does not expect that from the Biden administration.
"They are just continuing the policies that were set by the Obama administration," Dr. Michael observes. "Under the Obama administration, there was an uprising across Iran, and they didn't help it at all. So, no, I don't expect this administration to do the right thing when it comes to Iran."
Still, she wishes the administration would change its policies "and realize that this is an evil regime that needs to be toppled and not encouraged."
ICC suggests 'false symmetry'
Meanwhile, Dr. Michael says "it's ludicrous" that the world's top war crimes court has requested an arrest warrant for Israel's prime minister.
Earlier this week, Slovenia joined Belgium and France in backing International Criminal Court (ICC) chief prosecutor Karim Khan's charges against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense minister – along with three Hamas leaders – for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Gaza Strip and Israel.
Bob Maginnis, a senior fellow for national security at the Family Research Council (FRC), says the ICC is run by leftists who have a difficult time differentiating between terrorists and a nation trying to defend itself.
"That's one of the reasons we, the United States, never joined the ICC," Maginnis points out. "It's very problematic. They wanted to threaten to put our soldiers (who had fought in Afghanistan and Iraq) in prison if they were captured, and, of course, they extend their moral blanket across the world that is tainted by their own political ideas."
He says the international body, headquartered in The Hague, Netherlands, seems to think it is the world's moral arbiters.
"They are not as pure as in driven snow themselves," Maginnis asserts. "So, I'm not surprised by this. It's much like the United Nations condemns Israel; many of these international forums do precisely the same thing."
"It's ludicrous that they would put the head of a democratic country, an elected official of a democratic country defending his country, defending his people … on the same standing with the terrorist Jihadist organization of Hamas that came in and massacred innocent Israeli civilians and have promised that they'll do it over and over and over again," Dr. Michael submits.
She insists there is no moral equivalency.
"It shows that there are antisemitic tendencies," the ICEJ director continues. "The United Nations and the International Criminal Court – they're fully exposed through this, and it's just a sad state of affairs when their view of the world is so tainted."
Mr. Netanyahu, she adds, is going to have to be careful where he travels if they enforce this and issue an arrest warrant, "because he's taking a huge risk of being arrested if he goes into any of those countries."
"If you go into a country that has an extradition agreement with the ICC, then that has to be taken under consideration," Maginnis agrees.
On Tuesday, President Biden denounced the ICC. Echoing Biden's comments, Netanyahu said Khan's decision to seek arrest warrants for both Israel's and Hamas' leaders reflects a "false symmetry" comparable to the arrest warrants that were issued for both President George W. Bush and Osama Bin Laden following the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Though Israel still has the support of the United States, NBC notes that after months of mounting tensions, Biden has not publicly backed the country.
