AP
A sickening reminder of how long Iran can hold a grudge: The trial of Hati Matar, 26, for the attempted murder Salman Rushie in 2022, kicked off Tuesday in Mayville.
Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, then Iran’s supreme leader, issued a fatwa (and $3 million bounty) against Rushdie back in 1989 over supposedly blasphemous passages in his “The Satanic Verses.”
More than three decades later, Matar did his best to carry out the theocrat’s wishes, allegedly stabbing Rushdie 10 times in front of a small crowd at a literary seminar, leaving him blind in one eye with damage to multiple organs.
When Iran wants your head, you’re never safe, no matter how much time goes by.
That makes President Trump’s decision to yank security from his former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, along with ex-National Security Adviser John Bolton and aide Brian Hook, beyond foolish.
Iran has made explicit threats against all three men over their roles in the killing of Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in January 2020, and there’s no telling how many would-be assassins, like Matar, are lying in wait to strike at the first opportunity.
When asked about the security pull, Trump shrugged, insisting “You can’t have [protection] for the rest of your life.”
Rushie learned the hard way that “the rest of your life” is exactly how long you have to fear Iran’s wrath once you’ve got a target on your back.
And though Trump has also gotten threats from the mullahs, he will have top-tier security forever.
He’s shamefully putting these men in a position of vulnerability he’ll never experience himself.
Best case? They spend the rest of their lives looking over their shoulders.
The worst case is unspeakable; but Trump will own that, too.
And he’ll have to live with the fact that he offered up Americans who worked for him to our enemies on a silver platter.
Pompeo, and everyone else involved in the Soleimani operation, took immense risks to take down a top Iranian general and give Trump a huge first-term win.
Protection (yes, lifelong) is the least we owe them.