The Iranian regime has a long, dishonorable history of assassination plots against dissidents and detractors abroad, but commissioning a hit against a former U.S. national security adviser represents a raising of the bar in brazenness. The revelation that a member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps attempted to have John Bolton murdered — on American soil, at that — should serve as a sobering reminder for President Joe Biden of Tehran’s depravity as he contemplates making a deal that will both enrich and embolden those behind the plot.
The U.S. Justice Department said Shahram Poursafi, an IRGC member based in Tehran, offered $300,000 “to individuals in the United States [to] carry out the murder in Washington, DC or Maryland.” The hit was likely meant as retaliation for the 2020 U.S. drone strike that killed Qassem Soleimani, a top IRGC commander designated by the U.S. as a terrorist and also personally sanctioned by the European Union and the United Nations.
Poursafi began casting for an assassin last fall, even as Biden was reiterating his pledge to revive the nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, that Iran signed with the world powers in the summer of 2015. President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the JCPOA in 2018, arguing it didn’t do enough to prevent Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons, and slapped economic sanctions against Iran.
