Western Europe just got a significant — and very timely — reminder of who the Middle East bad guys really are.
Denmark disclosed this week that its intelligence service had foiled an Iranian government plot to assassinate an opposition activist in Copenhagen.
This isn’t remotely an isolated incident: Last June, Germany averted a planned bombing attack in Paris against other Iranian dissidents. And foreign assassination plots are just one part of Iran’s global campaign of state terror going back decades.
Targeting opponents of a regime on foreign soil is precisely the kind of behavior that’s sparked an international uproar over Saudi Arabia’s killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in Turkey. Yet the outcry over Iran has been comparatively muted.
That may be about to change: Danish Prime Minister Lars Loekke Rasmussen now promises that “further actions against Iran will be discussed in the EU” and that Denmark will “work with any other states who are willing to cooperate with us on implementing sanctions against Iran.”
If Denmark and other EU nations are now prepared to act forcefully against Tehran’s multinational hit squads, that would be a dramatic return to common sense.
Copenhagen has been a leader in the EU’s pushback against President Trump’s withdrawal from the Obama nuclear deal — even promising to cover any losses Iranian banks might suffer from US sanctions.
Whether Denmark is doing a full about-face remains to be seen. Even the Trump administration reportedly may not demand Iran’s removal from the SWIFT international money-transfer system as part of the new sanctions to be unveiled Monday.
But it’s a step toward European nations finally coming to realize that, when it comes to exporting political terror, Iran has no peer.