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In October 2018, agents of the Saudi Arabian government murdered columnist and Muslim Brotherhood fellow traveler Jamal Khashoggi in gruesome fashion. The fallout in the American media was cataclysmic for the relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia; two years after the murder, then-candidate Joe Biden issued a statement „mourning Khashoggi’s death“ and calling for reassessment of the American relationship with the Kingdom.
This week, a 24-year-old Muslim American with connections to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps attempted to murder famed author Salman Rushdie for writing „The Satanic Verses.“ In 1989, the Iranian government issued its death sentence on Rushdie, encouraging anyone within its purview to kill him; in the aftermath of Rushdie’s stabbing – Rushdie ended up on a ventilator and will likely lose an eye – the Iranian government issued a statement blaming Rushdie „and his supporters. … We believe that the insults made and the support he received was an insult against followers of all religions.“
Just days before the attack on Rushdie, a member of the IRGC was charged by the Justice Department in a murder-for-hire attempt on former national security adviser John Bolton. The attempt was reportedly retaliation for the American drone strike on IRGC commander Qasem Soleimani in 2020; the suspect tried to pay an undercover federal agent $300,000 for the killing.
