(CNSNews.com) – Javad Zarif, the Iranian foreign minister hailed by engagement advocates as personifying a supposed "moderate" element in Tehran, has expressed his condolences over the death of a top Hezbollah terrorist linked to the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut and the 2005 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
Zarif sent a weekend message to Hezbollah chief Hasan Nasrallah, expressing sorrow at the death of Mustafa Badreddine, saying his "martyrdom" would further strengthen "resistance" forces against the Zionist enemy and terrorism, according to Hezbollah and Iranian state media accounts.
Zarif, who has met with Secretary of State John Kerry on numerous occasions during and since marathon negotiations on a nuclear deal, described the dead terrorist as "all passion and devotion" in defending the ideals of Islam and the Lebanese people.
Badreddine, the Shi'ite group's military commander, was buried Friday after being killed an explosion near Damascus airport which was blamed first on an Israeli airstrike, but later on shelling from Sunni rebels fighting against the Assad regime.
Hezbollah and its allies label their Sunni foes in Syria "takfiris" – a derogatory term for radical Sunnis who view Muslims not sharing their religious outlook, such as Shi'ites, as infidels.
Hezbollah media outlets ran adulatory items on Badreddine, describing him in heroic terms, as someone who had frustrated and humiliated Israel for decades.
"A great man … the significant man of resistance, is absent today, yet he left us the honor of victories and a path full of glory," began one eulogy on the group's television mouthpiece al-Manar.
Badreddine's predecessor, Imad Mughniyah, was killed in a bomb blast in Damascus in 2008, blamed by the group on Israel and the U.S.
Together Badreddine and Mughniyah, who were also brothers-in-law, were implicated in many of Hezbollah's most infamous terrorist attacks, including the 1983 suicide bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in the Lebanese capital. Two hundred and forty-one Americans were killed in what was the biggest single-day death toll for the U.S. Marine Corps since World War II.
More recently, Badreddine was accused of masterminding the February 14, 2005 assassination of Hariri, who was killed along with 21 others in a car bombing in downtown Beirut.
In 2011, the U.N.-backed Special Tribunal for Lebanon indicted Badreddine and three other Hezbollah members for their alleged roles in the assassination. Hezbollah rejected the accusations and refused to cooperate.
One of many concerns voiced by critics of the Iran nuclear deal is that sanctions relief will allow Tehran to channel more funding to Hezbollah.
Despite Hezbollah's record, and despite his portrayal as a "moderate" in the Iranian regime, Zarif has been openly supportive of the group.
Weeks after finalizing the nuclear deal with Kerry, Zarif last August held talks with Hezbollah chief Nasrallah in Beirut.
On the same day, Kerry suggested during an appearance at Thomson Reuters headquarters in New York that despite concerns about Iran's ongoing bad behavior in the region, some in the government, like Zarif and President Hasan Rouhani, wanted a different path.
"I just got a message today from my counterpart from Iran," Kerry continued. "He's in Beirut, meeting with the government officials there. You know where he was last weekend? He was in Kuwait and in Qatar. He's reaching out to those countries. Are we going to turn our backs on the possibility that Rouhani and Zarif might, in fact, want to try to have a different –?