How the US war on Iran may provoke a terrorist attack – and how that may be the point | US-Israel war on Iran
For decades, the United States and its allies have portrayed Iran as the world’s largest sponsor of state terrorism, citing the supposed revolutionary fanaticism of Islamist rulers and its determined support of militant proxies.
Now, a long-standing but mostly hidden threat is combining with the US and Israeli war against the country, raising the risk of an attack on American soil to levels not seen since the murderous Al Qaeda. Experts say it was the September 11, 2001 attacks.
In an election year, opponents of Donald Trump warn that such an event could turn to his advantage; This could give him an excuse to crack down on his critics by declaring a state of emergency or even canceling November’s midterm congressional elections.
Two attacks on Thursday alone highlighted the growing dangers.
One person died and two others were injured when a gunman opened fire on a classroom at Old Dominion University in Virginia, shouting “Allahu Akbar”. It was later determined that the attacker was a former national guardsman who admitted to previously trying to provide material support to the Islamic State.
In Michigan, a Lebanese-born U.S. citizen crashed a truck into the Temple Israel synagogue in West Bloomfield Township before being shot by security guards. The attacker, Ayman Mohammed Ghazali, lost his two brothers and a nephew and niece during Israel’s raid on Lebanon this month.
This week’s events followed a fatal attack On March 1, a man wearing Iranian flag-patterned clothing with the words “Property of God” shot and killed two people and injured 14 others at a bar in Austin, Texas, when he was fatally shot by police.
While there is no direct evidence directly linking the events to Iran, analysts say an “asymmetric” attack ordered or inspired by Tehran in response to U.S.-Israeli military action is a real and present danger.
At the same time, instability in the FBI and Department of Homeland Security left the United States unprepared.
Matthew LevittIran, a counterterrorism expert at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said threats from Tehran had increased even before the current offensive began on Feb. 28; Iran was seeking revenge for last June’s 12-day war in which US strikes heavily damaged its nuclear facilities and killed a number of Israeli top commanders.
US officials are believed to have uncovered and stopped 17 Iranian-inspired plots in the past five years. Some of them are in the nature of “Keystone cops,” but that doesn’t reduce the threat level, Levitt said.
“Just because many of the schemers don’t seem particularly skilled doesn’t mean they won’t ultimately be successful,” said Levitt, author of a detailed study titled. Tehran’s Homeland Option. “We need to do it right all the time, and they need to do it right once.”
Iran will likely “do everything” not only to increase the cost of the war to the United States and protect the Islamic regime, but also to avenge the killing of its most powerful figure, religious leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who died in an Israeli attack on the opening day of the war.
“The threat may not be as acute when the war is over, but it will remain with us,” Levitt said. “There will be an end to this because from Iran’s perspective, all kinds of lines have been crossed. They will want to pay a price to raise the level of deterrence so that people will think two or three times before starting another round.”
The religious regime is believed to be planning to kill Trump and two senior officials from his first administration – former secretary of state Mike Pompeo and former national security adviser John Bolton – in revenge for the US assassination in January 2020 of Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Revolutionary Guard’s elite Quds force.
Pakistani citizen, Asif MerchantOn March 6, he was found guilty in a court in New York of planning to kill US officials, including Trump, on the instructions of the Revolutionary Guards.
Last week, Ali LarijaniHe reiterated his threat to Trump, the secretary of Iran’s supreme national security council and one of the regime’s most powerful surviving figures, telling him: “Take care of yourself, or you’ll be eliminated!”
This comment came after Trump threatened to intensify attacks on Iran if Iran blocked the Strait of Hormuz; This is something Iran now claims to be doing.
Recent reports suggest that Iran may have tried to activate “sleeper cells” in the United States.
On the day the war began, the voice of a man speaking Persian was heard on the shortwave radio. read out loud It was believed to be a cipher code, a traditional method used by spy agencies such as the CIA and KGB to contact undercover agents.
Analysts have expressed skepticism about the “sleeper” agent threat, but one man Ali KuraniThat’s how the naturalized U.S. citizen, originally from Lebanon, described himself to investigators after being accused of conspiring to hit targets in New York on behalf of Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite group widely seen as a proxy for Iran.
“When the FBI asked him under what circumstances he expected to be deployed for pre-operative surveillance activities that he was doing all over New York and elsewhere, he said emphatically whether the United States was engaged in a direct conflict with Iran,” Levitt, who testified in the case, said. Kourani was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
“He also talked about whether the United States was involved in assassinations of senior Hezbollah or Iranian leaders, and at this point that’s all in the rearview mirror.”
Threats are also likely to take the form of criminal proxies and Iran-inspired lone actors that Iran sought to use in a failed plot to kill U.S.-based Iranian journalist Masih Alinejad and in attempts against Bolton and Pompeo.
John DonohueMr. Trump, a former deputy chief of intelligence for the New York police department and a professor at Rutgers University, said the existential threat posed to the Iranian regime by U.S. and Israeli attacks could push it to deploy long-term assets it has paid to keep in the United States.
Reminding that Iranian agents were arrested for monitoring important places in New York for possible attacks, Donohue said, “The Iranian regime’s long-term investment in improving its capabilities abroad cannot be underestimated.”
“If you look at the history of the Iranian regime’s initiatives against American interests, you don’t see small, limited types of events. They are looking for mass casualties.
“They tend to be very conscious and strategic about how they do things. [But] Now, with major concerns about regime survival, does this cause them to be less strategic? Does this cause them to be more reflexive and tentative? That’s the real question.”
Observers question whether the FBI and the Homeland Security Department are prepared to deal with the growing threat from Iran.
Rookie agents at the FBI’s training academy reassigned as uniformed police officer Donohue said he was in Washington, D.C., on the instructions of office manager Kash Patel.
Meanwhile, vital homeland security oversight functions have been temporarily shelved due to a partial DHS shutdown after Democrats refused to continue funding the department without reforms to how Immigration and Customs Enforcement operates.
“Preparedness is a huge issue,” said Colin Clarke, executive director of the Soufan Center, a group that studies global security. “[The administration] He diverted resources from counterterrorism to immigration enforcement. We have long shifted counterterrorism experts to other portfolios such as China, Russia and emerging technology. “This situation is escalating at a time when we are least prepared to deal with it.”
It also comes as Trump is trying to avoid Republican defeat in November’s midterm congressional elections, with a series of polls showing declining approval ratings and low support for an Iran attack.
Writing on Substack, historian Timothy Snyder warned that a terrorist attack could work in Trump’s favor and even explain his rationale for taking military action.
“One purpose of the war against Iran may be to provoke a terrorist attack within the United States,” Snyder wrote. “This would give Donald Trump an excuse to attempt to cancel or ‘federalize’ the upcoming congressional elections.
“self-terrorism This may not have been the original intention; but as time passes and the failures and persecutions increase, so will its appeal. Trump may think he has a lot to gain; war itself makes terrorism more likely.”
This claim was supported by the company’s chief executive, Steven Cash. Steady stateA group of retired national security officials is concerned about the authoritarian course of the United States under Trump.
“We used our technological and economic advantage to kill thousands of Iranians and religious leaders. [chief] Ayatollah [Khamenei]. “We destroyed any defensive and deterrent capabilities they might have had with appropriate military means and left them with nothing else,” he said.
“Of course there will be retaliation; that’s their rational response. That may be what Trump is interested in. He’s spent a year convincing Americans that we face a terrible domestic threat.”
“Suddenly, this unprecedented and unprovoked attack on another country—possibly in violation of the constitution and international law—will create the conditions under which the presidency has unsuccessfully tried to convince us that it would justify its extraordinary powers.”
