Trading with terror

It bothers Americans that the Europeans, their eye on trade, seem insensitive to acts of terrorism and repression conducted by the likes of Iran and Cuba. But of course it bothers America's trading partners in Europe that the United States wields sanctions against them when they do not support American foreign policy in such places. These tensions are well-etched features of the post-Cold War scene. Fortunately, sometimes something positive happens to ease the strain.

American efforts to enlist the Europeans in isolating Iran have received a boost. A German court convicted three Iranians for the murder of three Kurdish dissidents in Berlin after finding that the killings had been ordered by an Iranian body including the country's president and its paramount spiritual leader. Faced with these facts from one of their own, the Europeans had no choice but to terminate the "critical dialogue" by which they had spun the trade-protecting illusion of Iranian moderation, and to expel Iranian ambassadors. Now, if reluctantly, they are to consider targeting other items of Iranian travel and commerce.

These deliberations will go on under the shadow of a fresh report linking a senior Iranian official to the Saudi group suspected of the bombing in Saudi Arabia last June that took 19 American lives. A finding that Iran was as directly responsible for the Khobar Towers bombing as the Berlin court found it was in the Mykonos restaurant bombing would have implications extending beyond trade. These include possible American reprisal. Europeans who shy from that possibility can best discourage it by getting tough on the economic side.

-- The Washington Post