A sickening reminder of how long Iran can hold a grudge: The trial of Hati Matar, 26, for the attempted murder of Salman Rushdie 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.