Paul R. Pillar is a 28-year veteran of the CIA. From 2000-2005, he worked as the national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia where he was considered the agency’s lead analyst in counterterrorism. He now works as a security studies professor at Georgetown University.
Here is his assessment of what we face if we attack Iran.
any U.S. or Israeli airstrike on Iranian territory “would be regarded as an act of war” by Tehran, and that Iran would strike back with its terrorist groups. “There’s no doubt in my mind about that. . . . Whether it’s overseas at the hands of Hezbollah, in Iraq or possibly Europe, within the regime there would be pressure to take violent action.”
This should not be surprising, nor should it be considered sinister. The idea that the United States can launch air strikes anywhere, anytime, and not suffer any consequences is foolish.
The United States and Iran have been fighting a low level covert war against each other since 1979.
Before Sept. 11, the armed wing of Hezbollah, often working on behalf of Iran, was responsible for more American deaths than in any other terrorist attacks. In 1983 Hezbollah truck-bombed the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 241, and in 1996 truck-bombed Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, killing 19 U.S. service members.
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Iran’s intelligence service, operating out of its embassies around the world, assassinated dozens of monarchists and political dissidents in Europe, Pakistan, Turkey and the Middle East in the two decades after the 1979 Iranian revolution, which brought to power a religious Shiite government. Argentine officials also believe Iranian agents bombed a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires in 1994, killing 86 people. Iran has denied involvement in that attack.
Iran’s intelligence services “are well trained, fairly sophisticated and have been doing this for decades,” said [Henry A.] Crumpton, a former deputy of operations at the CIA’s Counterterrorist Center. “They are still very capable. I don’t see their capabilities as having diminished.”
Both sides have increased their activities against the other. The Bush administration is spending $75 million to step up pressure on the Iranian government, including funding non-governmental organizations and alternative media broadcasts. Iran’s parliament then approved $13.6 million to counter what it calls “plots and acts of meddling” by the United States.
Here is the deal. If we want to prevent Iran from getting a nuclear weapon we need to find a way to normalize relations with them. Sanctions are unlikely to prevent Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, and may even increase their sense of urgency. Bombing them will be unlikely to significantly reduce their capability. And it will greatly increase the likelihood that American citizens will be targeted, either here or abroad.
It won’t be easy to negotiate with Iran’s government. But, in the long run, nothing could do more to improve our situation in Iraq, or to reduce the threat of terrorism, or to deal with the threat of nuclear proliferation, than for the United States and Iran to make peace and normalize relations.
