THE IRAN-BOSNIA SCANDAL: WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

(Washington, D.C.): On 7 December 1995, the Center for
Security Policy wrote ⁽¹⁾:

“Assuming Senator Dole is serious about
correcting, once and for all, the past, misbegotten
U.S. policy on arming the Bosnians, he must insist
that the Bosnians reciprocate by lopping off the
tentacles of Islamic extremism now threatening to
strangle multi-ethnic, democratic Bosnia. To do
otherwise, would be to invite a contemporary
counterpart of an Iran-Contra scandal. In an
Iran-Bosnia scandal, however, Americans may
lose their lives — and vastly more.“

As result of investigative reporting launched by the Los
Angeles Times on 4 April 1996, it is now clear that there
is an Iran-Bosnia scandal. What is
surprising, however, is the role played by the Clinton
Administration in facilitating the penetration of the
Bosnian government ministries and armed forces by Teheran
and its surrogates. As the Center for Security Policy’s
director, Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., and Roger W. Robinson,
Jr., a founding member of the Center’s Board of Advisors,
put it in the attached column
published in today’s Washington Times:

“In early 1994, President Clinton personally
approved a policy of ‘active acquiescence’
to a request by Croatian President Franjo Tudjman
that Iran be allowed to funnel arms to the
Muslim-dominated Bosnian government via Croatia. This
action was taken, however, at a time when the Clinton
Administration’s official policy was fixedly
supporting the UN arms embargo on the former
Yugoslavia — an odious arrangement that had the
effect of denying a member nation its right to
self-defense while doing little, if anything, to curb
the war-making potential of the Serb perpetrators of
aggression and ethnic cleansing in Bosnia.”

“In other words, Mr. Clinton was at
once enabling the Islamic totalitarians of Iran to
secure a strategic beachhead on the continent of
Europe — one made the more dangerous for its
combining radical Iranian theology, arms and
terrorist training with the profound alienation of a
people who had good reason to feel abandoned by the
West — and assiduously resisting congressional
initiatives sponsored by his rival, Senator Robert
Dole, to end the arms embargo and to provide U.S.
weaponry above-board to the Bosnian government.”
(Emphasis added.)

The Tudjman Connection

In its 7 December paper, the Center posed the
following questions:

“What role, if any, is Croatia playing in
facilitating Iranian and foreign mujahedeen
involvement in Bosnia? Does Iran have financial or
any other leverage over Croatia which could make it
difficult for Zagreb to fulfill the pledges it — and
the other parties — made in Dayton to end such
foreign involvement? What extradition procedures have
been established with the Croatian government, if
any, with regard to known mujahedeen terrorists
wanted in Egypt and other nations?”

The answers to some of these questions are now known.
With President Clinton’s “active acquiescence,”
Croatia became in 1994 the European source of the Iranian
pipeline for arms, combatants and military training
personnel. Zagreb issued visas for Iranian Revolutionary
Guards and other Islamic foreign legionnaires, sometimes
under the guise of volunteers with the Red Crescent (the
Muslim version of the Red Cross humanitarian
organization.) What is more, although the flow of that
pipeline was supposed to have been shut off in the
aftermath of the signing of the Dayton accords, President
Tudjman is reportedly scheduled to pay a visit to Teheran
within the next few weeks — an indication, at the very
least, of his desire to remain on good terms with the
Islamic totalitarians who run Iran.

What is less certain is President Tudjman’s
motivation. Clearly, his armed forces have benefitted
from the roughly 30% cut he has taken out of the arms
shipped to Bosnia via Croatia. But a more sinister — and
longer-term — explanation deserves consideration: The
smuggling of Iranian arms and personnel to Bosnia has
afforded Zagreb (and, for that matter, Belgrade) a means
of gradually establishing the Bosnian government as a
radical Islamic regime in the eyes of the international
community. In this manner, widespread support
can be cultivated, at a minimum in Europe, for the
ultimate carve-up of Bosnia (possibly leaving a
Muslim-controlled city-state in Sarajevo) after IFOR
forces depart and the Dayton agreements disintegrate. ⁽²⁾

Can Bosnia Be Weaned from the Islamic
Foreign Legion?

Unfortunately, if this is indeed the Croatian agenda,
recent actions by the Bosnian government seem certain to
advance it. As reported in a front-page story in today’s Washington
Times:

“The Sarajevo government secretly
told Iran last month that the United States must be
made to understand that Bosnia-Herzegovina will
maintain the same level of cooperation with Iran that
it had during the 3-year war, when weapons
and training were provided to the Muslim-led
government, according to information contained in secret
reports circulated recently within the U.S.
government….

“[Bosnian Prime Minister Hosan] Muratovic
privately told the Iranians [in the course of a March
1996 visit to Teheran] his visit was meant as a clear
diplomatic signal to the United States that Bosnia
will continue its close relationship with Iran,
despite U.S. pressure to reduce the ties.”
(Emphasis added.)

Sweetheart Dealing With Iran?

Another stunning bit of intelligence revealed in
today’s article by the Washington Times’ Bill
Gertz is its insight into Teheran’s perceptions of
Washington’s real attitude toward Iran:

“Iranian officials believe Clinton
Administration hostility to Iran is a propaganda ploy
and that Washington wants the West to open relations
with Iran through various contacts in
Bosnia….”

In their column, Messrs. Gaffney and Robinson offered
a bill of particulars as to why such Iranian perceptions
may be well-founded:

“…The possibility must be considered that the
Clinton Administration’s policies on the following
Iran-related issues were substantially influenced by
a compromising sense of indebtedness to Teheran for
helping equip and train the Bosnian Muslims:
de facto acquiescence to Russia’s
nuclear reactor deal with Iran; failure to
prosecute Iranian links to the wholesale
counterfeiting of $100 bills; initial
approval of the massive Conoco oil deal with
Iran; declining even to name Iran as a state-sponsor
of terrorism at the recent Sharm el-Sheik
summit; strong opposition to the D’Amato-King
legislation that would afford significant new
import-control tools for tightening the
embargo on Iran; and turning a blind eye to the
hemorrhage of North Korean Scuds, Russian submarines
and aircraft, Chinese cruise missiles and patrol
boats and other advanced technology delivered to the
Iranian armed forces. Such policies promise
greatly to compound the damage done in the first
instance by Mr. Clinton’s decision to give President
Tudjman the green light — the practical effect of
giving his representatives ‘no instructions’ — to
set up an Iranian arms pipeline through
Croatia.”

How Congress Can Get to the Bottom of the
Iran-Bosnia Scandal

The Center commends Senator Robert Dole and House
Speaker Newt Gingrich for responding swiftly to
revelations that have caused the Iran-Bosnia scandal to
reach critical mass. In particular, it applauds the
direction given by Speaker Gingrich on 5 April 1996 ⁽³⁾ to the four
House committees charged with getting to the bottom of
this affair:

• What prompted the President to enter into a
  secret agreement with Croatia to allow the
  shipment of large quantities of arms from Iran to
  Bosnia?
• Did Administration officials initiate this deal
  and did it involve them directly or indirectly
  with Iranian officials?
• Why did the President not notify Congress of this
  secret arrangement when it was made, or in the
  nearly two years since it was made?
• Has the Administration been honest in its public
  and private statements on this issue, during its
  testimony before Congress, its statements to the
  American people and in its diplomatic dialogue
  with our European allies?
• Were any laws violated by this reckless action?

The Center urges the House and Senate investigators to
broaden the lens further to assess whether the
Clinton Administration’s stated policy of
“containing” Iran is as hypocritical and
duplicitous as its oft-repeated public commitment to the
international arms embargo on Bosnia has proved to be.

The Bottom Line

The Clinton Administration has raised lawyerly
“sharp practice” and double-speak to an art
form in its dealing with domestic policy issues and with
respect to its past record of governance in Arkansas. The
disclosure of the Iran-Bosnia Scandal, however, is
proof-positive that this debilitating form of
expediency-driven, non-transparent — if not duplicitous
— policy-making has thoroughly infected the foreign
policy and national security portfolios, as well. In
light of the dire strategic implications of applying such
practices to the latter accounts, the congressional
investigators must first ascertain the full dimensions of
the Clinton team’s international sleights-of-hand, and
then work to reverse them, in Bosnia and beyond.

– 30 –

1. See the Center’s
Decision Brief entitled Train and
Arm the Bosnians — But Ensure That the Islamic ‘Foreign
Legion’ Is Sent Packing! ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=95-D_101″>No. 95-D 101, 7 December
1995).

2. In this regard, recall the map
drawn on the back of a menu by President Tudjman in the
presence of British Liberal Democrat leader Paddy Ashdown
at a 6 May 1995 V-E Day celebration in London.

3. Excerpted from a press release
issued by press spokesman Tony Blankley last Friday.