[House Hearing, 114 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
STATE SPONSOR OF TERROR:
THE GLOBAL THREAT OF IRAN
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM, NONPROLIFERATION, AND TRADE
OF THE
COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
FEBRUARY 11, 2015
__________
Serial No. 114-9
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs
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COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS
EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman
CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York
ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida BRAD SHERMAN, California
DANA ROHRABACHER, California GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey
JOE WILSON, South Carolina GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida
TED POE, Texas BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
MATT SALMON, Arizona KAREN BASS, California
DARRELL E. ISSA, California WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island
JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
MO BROOKS, Alabama AMI BERA, California
PAUL COOK, California ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California
RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas GRACE MENG, New York
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania LOIS FRANKEL, Florida
RON DeSANTIS, Florida TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii
MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
TED S. YOHO, Florida ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois
CURT CLAWSON, Florida BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania
SCOTT DesJARLAIS, Tennessee
REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin
DAVID A. TROTT, Michigan
LEE M. ZELDIN, New York
TOM EMMER, Minnesota
Amy Porter, Chief of Staff Thomas Sheehy, Staff Director
Jason Steinbaum, Democratic Staff Director
------
Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade
TED POE, Texas, Chairman
JOE WILSON, South Carolina WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts
DARRELL E. ISSA, California BRAD SHERMAN, California
PAUL COOK, California BRIAN HIGGINS, New York
SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas
REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois
LEE M. ZELDIN, New York
C O N T E N T S
----------
Page
WITNESSES
Frederick W. Kagan, Ph.D., Christopher DeMuth chair and director,
Critical Threats Project, American Enterprise Institute........ 6
Mr. Ilan I. Berman, vice president, American Foreign Policy
Council........................................................ 12
Mr. Tony Badran, research fellow, Foundation for Defense of
Democracies.................................................... 23
Daniel L. Byman, Ph.D., professor, Security Studies Program,
Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown
University..................................................... 34
LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
Frederick W. Kagan, Ph.D.: Prepared statement.................... 8
Mr. Ilan I. Berman: Prepared statement........................... 14
Mr. Tony Badran: Prepared statement.............................. 25
Daniel L. Byman, Ph.D.: Prepared statement....................... 36
APPENDIX
Hearing notice................................................... 60
Hearing minutes.................................................. 61
STATE SPONSOR OF TERROR:
THE GLOBAL THREAT OF IRAN
----------
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2015
House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Terrorism, Nonproliferation, and Trade,
Committee on Foreign Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 o'clock
p.m., in room 2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ted Poe
(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.
Mr. Poe. The subcommittee will come to order.
Without objection, all members may have 5 days to submit
statements, objections, questions, and extraneous materials for
the record, subject to the length limitation in the rules.
The Iranians are the largest state sponsor of terror in the
whole world. Iranian proxy groups like Hezbollah resource and
execute attacks around the world. Iranian IRGC and Quds Force
troops personally support and engineer attacks on a global
scale. These aren't rogue elements; these attacks are directed
by the Iranian regime.
This is the very same regime we are in good-faith
negotiations with to curb their nuclear ambitions. In my
opinion, it is dreaming to believe Iran would uphold any
eventual agreement. If sanctions are ultimately lifted through
the ongoing negotiations, they should only be sanctions that
have to do with Iran's nuclear program. Sanctions put in place
for its terrorist activity, although minimal, in my opinion
should never be lifted.
Iranian-backed terror plots are a threat to everyone. In
2011, the Iranians plotted to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador
to the United States in Washington, DC. That plot, fortunately,
was uncovered and stopped before it could be carried out.
Recently, the suspicious death of Argentinian prosecutor
Alberto Nisman has raised eyebrows. Nisman was found dead 1 day
before he was about to reveal details of Iran's involvement in
the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires
that killed 85 people--ironic timing, it seems. Given Iran's
previous behavior abroad, I believe Nisman's death should be
thoroughly investigated to see if the Iranians were involved in
that episode.
In Yemen, would-be rebels overthrew the government with the
support of--guess who?--the regime in Tehran. Iran has long
supported Houthis against Yemen's Sunni tribes. This illegal
act also complicates U.S. counterterrorism efforts against
AQAP.
In Iraq, Iran is reenergizing Shia death squads to prop up
the government in Baghdad. In fact, these Shia militias that
Iran supports, trains, and resources are much more capable than
Iraq's own army. There are reports that Iraqi Army units are
being led by these Shia militia commanders, controlled by Iran.
Even though Malaki is gone, the new Iraqi Prime Minister, al-
Abadi, doesn't seem to be trying to distance himself from
Iranian control.
And Iranian hands are also in the mischief--they have
created mischief all over the attacks and murders of freedom
fighters in Camp Liberty and Camp Ashraf. And no one has ever
been held accountable for these homicides that have taken place
over the last several years against these Iranian dissidents in
Iraq.
The lack of inclusive government and Iran's control of the
security apparatus does not bode well for the push to defeat
ISIL or bring the moderate Sunni tribes into the fold.
In neighboring Syria, Iran is even stronger. Iran virtually
controls the Assad regime and helps the murderous dictator
cling to power every day. Many believe that if it weren't for
Iran, Assad would already have been overthrown.
Iran's power play in the region is paying dividends at the
expense of moderate Sunni countries in the region. But Iran's
main target is still Israel and Israeli interests around the
world. In the last 3 years alone, Iran has killed or tried to
kill Israelis, not in Israel but in Bulgaria, India, Thailand,
and Georgia, and the list goes on and on. It is truly a
worldwide assault on Israel.
Iran must be held accountable for its state sponsorship of
acts of terror. It should not be given a pass just because it
is talking to us about a different issue, its increased nuclear
weapon program. All of these activities are part of Iran's plan
to expand its influence and its stature and its terror around
the globe.
And now I will recognize the ranking member, Mr. Keating
from Massachusetts, for his opening statement.
Mr. Keating. Thank you, Chairman Poe.
And I would also like to thank our witnesses for being here
today.
For over the past 30 years, Iran's stance toward the United
States has been antagonistic, to say the least. Despite our
renewal of direct talks with Iran, the Iranian regime must
understand that, regardless of any progress made on the nuclear
issue, the United States and our allies will not turn a blind
eye to Iran's established and potentially growing role as a
state sponsor of international terrorism.
Working mostly through the Islamic Revolutionary Guard
Corps, Quds Force, and its protege, Hezbollah, Iran has
continually targeted American citizens and our allies in every
corner of the globe. According to the latest State Department
country reports on terrorism, Hezbollah, backed by millions of
dollars in Iranian funding, has significantly increased its
global terrorist activities since 2012. The report states that
the United States has seen a resurgence of activity by Iran's
Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Quds, the Iranian Ministry
of Intelligence and Security, and Tehran's ally Hezbollah.
On January 23, 2013, the Yemeni Coast Guard interdicted an
Iranian dhow carrying weapons and explosives likely destined
for Houthi rebels. On February 5, 2013, the Bulgarian
Government publicly implicated Hezbollah in July 2012 at the
Burgas bombing that killed 5 Israelis and 1 Bulgarian citizen
and injured 32 others.
On March 21, 2013, a Cyprus court found that a Hezbollah
operative was guilty of charges stemming from his surveillance
activities of Israeli tourist targets in 2012. On September
18th, Thailand convicted Atris Hussein, a Hezbollah operative
detained by Thai authorities on January 2012.
And on December 30, 2013, a Bahraini Coast Guard
interdicted a speedboat attempting to smuggle arms and Iranian
explosives, likely destined for armed Shia opposition groups in
Bahrain. During an interrogation, the suspects admitted to
receiving paramilitary training in Iran.
In addition, we have seen numerous other examples of Iran's
direct involvement in or support for terrorist activities,
including the 1983 Marine barracks bombing in Lebanon, the 1994
bombing of the AMIA Jewish center in Argentina, the 1996 Khobar
Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia, and thwarted terrorist plots in
Cyprus, Georgia, Kenya, Thailand, and even right here in
Washington, DC, against the Saudi Arabian Ambassador that the
chair mentioned.
For the past 3 years, Hezbollah and Quds have funneled
money, fighters, and weapons into Syria. Certain senior Quds
Force personnel, including General Hassan Shateri, have even
died in that struggle.
So, in conclusion, with attention focused on potential
diplomatic solutions to the Iranian nuclear crisis, it is
important to remind the world that we have not and will not
ignore Iran's destabilizing actions around the globe and its
continued support to groups who continue to support or plan
attacks against American citizens and interests as well as
against our allies.
I look to our witnesses today to provide us with more of a
complete picture of Iran's activities, what drives its
sustained support for international terrorism, and what options
the United States has to curtail Iran's support for these
groups, particularly through nuclear talks.
With that, I yield back. And thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Poe. I thank the gentleman.
The Chair will now recognize the gentleman from California,
Mr. Issa, for an opening statement.
Mr. Issa. Thank you, Chairman.
Today's hearing is important, but it is not new. We will
say a great many things, and very few of them will be new.
Certainly, questions about Armenia's banking relationship
with Iran, certainly authorized, pushed, prodded, and cajoled
by Russia, is new and concerning when we are looking to Russia,
in theory, as an honest broker to help--a destabilizing
effect--be thwarted of their nuclear ambitions. But, of course,
Russia's involvement makes it very clear that, in fact, all
they are really doing is guaranteeing a slow march toward a
nuclear Iran.
Sanctions are the subject, Iran is the subject, but we
would be remiss if we didn't do two things: Recognize that, all
the way back in the early 1980s, the late President Ronald
Reagan referred to an evil empire, at that time the Soviet
Union. They were evil because of their participation around the
world in fomenting the kinds of things that Iran has been
fomenting since 1979.
Today, Iran and Russia are partners more than ever before
in, in fact, destabilizing activities. As both the chairman and
ranking member mentioned, rightfully so, Syria only exists,
Hezbollah only exists, Hamas is only a dangerous force because
of the direct support from Iran, either directly in money or
through its puppet, Syria.
To put it in perspective, today we will talk about Iran as
though there is some doubt as to what they might do. But, in
fact, I was a 26-year-old Army lieutenant in 1979. I am now a
61-year-old Congressman saying, does it take more than 36 years
of direct and constant involvement in terrorism, destabilizing
countries around the world, and being involved time and time
again in assassinations, kidnaps, and murders?
My point today and, Mr. Chairman, I think what this hearing
will show is that Einstein would clearly call it insanity after
36 years of consistently getting the same result from
approaches to Iran to believe that this round of negotiations
by the administration will yield anything other than what we
have had for 36 years since the Ayatollah Khomeini and his gang
took over Iran.
And, with that, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for the
opportunity to make a short opening statement. I look forward
to questions, particularly questions on Russia's involvement
through Armenia in the backdoor circumvention of the sanctions
as they are in place today.
And I yield back.
Mr. Poe. The Chair will now recognize another gentleman
from California, Mr. Sherman, for his opening statement.
Mr. Sherman. Thank you.
There are three forces in the Middle East, or constellation
of forces. You have the forces of reason. You have Sunni
extremists, typified by Al Qaeda and ISIS. And, finally, and
perhaps deserving most of our attention, is the Shiite
alliance, quarterbacked by Iran and including Hezbollah,
including much of the Baghdad government and certainly the
Shiite militias that are run by the Iranians, and, finally,
Assad.
We will meet as a full committee in this room tomorrow to
discuss ISIS. And everybody is talking about ISIS, and they
have videos of evil to show that they are on the cutting edge
of unspeakable crimes. But the fact is that the Shiite alliance
headed by Iran is far more deadly than ISIS, just in Syria,
having killed perhaps as many as 200,000 people, and certainly
they have killed more Americans, starting with the Marine
barracks in Beirut in--I believe it was 1983.
The Shiite alliance is more dangerous than ISIS. ISIS
aspires, may have some capacities as of yet unproven, to carry
out directed attacks in the West. As my colleagues in their
opening statements have detailed, Iran and its allies have
killed people on virtually every continent, save Antarctica.
Now, it is interesting; ISIS, I think, wants to be bombed
by the United States. You would have to say they were asking
for it, and we have obliged. Assad clearly did not want to be
bombed, and the other elements of the Shiite alliance do not
want to be bombed by the United States. We have obliged. And
before we wage more intense war on ISIS, we have to ask who
will fill that space and are we not weakening an enemy of the
Shiite alliance without noting that that alliance is a greater
threat to us than ISIS.
Finally, though, I would agree that talking to the Iranians
is not a bad thing as long as we do not check our skepticism at
the door. Ronald Reagan negotiated with the entity he described
as an evil empire, and we certainly did business even with
Stalin. So talking is fine. You don't make peace with your
friends; you make peace with your enemies. But let's not delude
ourselves. Iran wants nuclear weapons.
I yield back.
Mr. Poe. I thank the gentleman.
The Chair will now recognize the gentleman from
Pennsylvania, Mr. Perry, for his opening statement.
Mr. Perry. Thanks, Mr. Chairman.
Since 1979, Iran has been responsible for countless
terrorist plots directly through regime agents or indirectly
through proxies like Hamas and Hezbollah. The IRGC is believed
to have had a direct role in the 1983 bombing of the U.S.
Marine barracks and French military barracks in Beirut,
Lebanon, which killed 299 American and French soldiers. After
the attacks of September 11, 2001, the Iranian regime assisted
the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and radical Shiite militias battling
U.S. and allied soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2011, the
U.S. Government announced it foiled an Iranian terrorist plot
to work with Mexican drug cartel members to assassinate the
Saudi Ambassador to the United States by bombing a Washington,
DC, restaurant he frequented. And, in 2012, the U.S. State
Department reported a clear resurgence in Iranian terrorist
activities and that Hezbollah's terrorist activities had
reached a tempo unseen since the 1990s.
This is nothing new, and it is imperative that we keep
these facts, ladies and gentlemen--these facts--in mind during
the ongoing nuclear negotiations with the Iranian regime.
And I yield back.
Mr. Poe. The gentleman yields back his time.
The Chair will now introduce all four of our witnesses. And
we will see how far we can go, because there is a voting
process. And after that, we will come back and go from there.
Dr. Fred Kagan is the Christopher DeMuth chair and director
of the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise
Institute. Mr. Kagan is also a former professor of military
history at the United States Military Academy at West Point.
Mr. Ilan Berman is vice president of the American Foreign
Policy Council. Mr. Berman is widely published on issues of
regional security and foreign policy and has also consulted for
the CIA, the Department of Defense, and other government
agencies.
Mr. Tony Badran is a research fellow at the Foundation for
Defense of Democracies. Mr. Badran has written extensively on
Hezbollah and focuses his research on countries in the Levant
and their regional relationship with militant and terrorist
groups.
Dr. Dan Byman is a professor in the Security Studies
Program at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. Dr.
Byman is also the research director of the Center for Middle
Eastern Policy at the Brookings Institute, where he specializes
in Middle East security and counterterrorism.
Dr. Kagan, we will start with you. You have 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF FREDERICK W. KAGAN, PH.D., CHRISTOPHER DEMUTH
CHAIR AND DIRECTOR, CRITICAL THREATS PROJECT, AMERICAN
ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE
Mr. Kagan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Keating.
You have stolen a lot of my testimony among the four
statements, so I think I will----
Mr. Poe. We read your testimony, so we just requoted it.
Mr. Kagan. And I won't weary your ears by repeating it one
more time, but instead I would like to make just a few of the
points in here and speak to some of the issues that you have
raised in your statements briefly.
We all agree about what the scale of the Iranian threat is,
that Iran is acting as an enemy state, that it is engaged in a
lot of malign activity in Syria and Iraq and Yemen, and so
forth.
I had the opportunity a few weeks ago to spend 4 days in
Baghdad at the invitation of Prime Minister Abadi, and it was
fascinating. And I would like to share with you, actually, a
couple of observations because I think they bear on some of the
comments that were made today.
Yes, Quds Force Commander Qasem Soleimani spends a lot of
time in Iraq. Yes, Iranian-controlled Shia militias,
particularly the Badr Corps, control Diyala province and, I
think, largely control the activities of the Fifth Iraqi Army
Division in that province. And we certainly have other lethal
Shia militias, such as Asaib Ahl al-Haq, which was deployed in
Syria and then is now back in Iraq and so on.
But I think that it is too much to say that Abadi is
controlled by Iran or desires to be. And I think it is also too
much to say that the Iraqi Army is controlled by Iran or
desires to be. That was not at all the sense that I got from
speaking with numerous Iraqi Army officers and even Shia
politicians.
We need to remember that the Iranians are generally as
offensive to their neighbors as they are to us, if not more so,
and their ability to antagonize is very high. I did absolutely
see in the middle of the Green Zone a billboard memorializing
Iranian IRGC Brigadier General Taghavi, who was killed around
Samarra, which had the IRGC logo at the bottom of it. And that
took my breath away because I haven't seen that in Iraq before.
On the other hand, what I generally heard was a desire for
the United States to offer an alternative to a very overbearing
neighbor that the Iraqis know does not have their best
interests at heart, even the Shia.
And I think that, as we reflect on Iraq and we reflect on
the role that Iran is playing in Iraq, we need to reflect on
our role also, and we need to understand the issue of what
alternative we are giving the Iraqis. We are providing a lot.
The air campaign is more effective than has been made out, but
we could be providing a lot more. And if we would lean into an
attempt to help support the new government in Iraq, I think we
would have a chance of weaning it away from Iranian control,
which is always problematic in an Arab state.
I think one of the things that it is very important to
recognize is a threat that emanates from Iran is not just the
evil that Tehran intentionally does but the evil that it does
unintentionally, as well. It is a pose of the regime that it is
an Islamic regime and that it is not a Shia regime. They have
not been able to convince hardly anybody except themselves of
the truth of that.
And the fact is that the Iranians back sectarian groups
pretty much across the board. And those sectarian groups are
accelerating and driving sectarian violence throughout the
region, which, in turn, is, in my opinion, one of the principal
drivers of mobilization for Al Qaeda and its affiliates and
radicalization for Muslims in the United States and the West.
So the problem is not simply that we need to get past our
hostility with Iran, which I agree is extremely unlikely. The
problem is that, even if we decided that we were going to try
to ally with Iran in the region and we were going to rely on
Iran as a partner, as some have suggested, although no one in
this room, they would do it badly, and they would continue to
do it badly, and they would continue to cause more problems
than they solve, to the extent that they ever solve problems,
because Iran is really not much of a problem-solving state. It
is much more of a problem-causing state.
I think it is very important to make the point that the
nuclear negotiations cannot be separated from concerns about
Iranian activities abroad because any relaxation of sanctions,
whether they are formally related to terrorist activities or
not, will provide a massive influx of resources to the Iranian
regime, which it will use in very predictable ways.
It will use those resources, for one thing, as the Supreme
Leader has announced and President Rohani has backed, to try to
make Iran proof against sanctions anytime in the future. Will
they be able to do that? Probably not. Will they be able to
weaken our ability to use this economic lever in the future?
Almost certainly.
So we need to understand the risk that is inherent in
relaxing sanctions in pursuit of a deal that appears to offer
modest gains for us at best.
And, lastly, Iran is under tremendous economic pressure
from us and from low prices of oil, and that is likely to
continue. The military adventurism that they are engaged in is
expensive. Supporting the Assad regime is expensive. Doing a
variety of other nefarious things that they do are expensive.
If we relax sanctions in pursuit of this deal, we will be
giving them the resources that they need at a moment of great
pinch for them, and you can be certain that a fair percentage
of those resources will be diverted to activities that we have
articulated here as very problematic.
I am over time, and I don't want to strain your patience. I
will just say, if anyone is interested also in talking about
the question of how much of a reformer and a moderate President
Rohani is, I think that is a topic that bears quite a lot of
discussion, as well.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you.
Mr. Poe. Thank you, Dr. Kagan.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Kagan follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
----------
Mr. Poe. Mr. Berman, 5 minutes.
STATEMENT OF MR. ILAN I. BERMAN, VICE PRESIDENT, AMERICAN
FOREIGN POLICY COUNCIL
Mr. Berman. Thank you, sir.
Chairman Poe, Ranking Member Keating, thank you very much
for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the
global threat, the truly global threat, of Iran.
This is a subject that unfortunately has not been addressed
seriously or comprehensively over the last year and a half.
Instead, if I could borrow a phrase from the late New York
Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, we have defined Iran's
deviancy down. We have concerned ourselves with the prospects
of achieving a deal over Iran's nuclear program to the
exclusion of a serious conversation about other aspects of
Iran's rogue behavior. And we have neglected to think deeply
and to focus on what Iran actually says and what it believes.
That is a very good place to start, I think. The roots of
Iran's current confrontational world view stretch back to the
Islamic Revolution that occurred 36 years ago this month. That
event enshrined the idea of exporting the revolution as a
cardinal regime principle for Iran's new government, and it is
an idea that remains very much in effect today.
The State Department's most recent report on global
terrorism trends, which all of you gentlemen referenced, makes
a point of demonstrating that, even though Iran is constrained
by international pressure, Iranian rogue activity globally is
on the rise. Iran, in other words, is on the march.
It is doing so in multiple theaters, from Syria to the
Palestinian territories, to Africa, to even Eurasia. Because my
time is limited here, let me focus simply on two.
The first is Latin America, which is very much in the
headlines today because of the suspected murder of Argentine
prosecutor Alberto Nisman. But Iran's intrusion into the region
is not a new phenomenon.It dates back to the early 1980s, when
Iran helped Lebanon's Hezbollah set up shop in the tri-border
region where Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay intersect. That
beachhead, in turn, allowed Hezbollah to carry out the 1992
attack on the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires and, 2 years
later, to carry out the attack on the AMIA center, which ranks
as the largest incident of Islamist terrorism to date in the
Western Hemisphere other than 9/11.
But, over the past decade, Iran's regional footprint has
gotten much larger. Beginning in 2005, Iran systematically
expanded its contacts throughout the region, leveraging the
radical regime of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela as a gateway to
expand its ties to what are called the Bolivarian nations, the
radical, leftist, anti-American nations of the region, in
particular to the regime of Evo Morales in Bolivia and of
Rafael Correa in Ecuador.
But these formal ties have been mirrored by a large and
effective clandestine network that Iran has succeeded in
erecting in the region. Mr. Nisman, in his May 2013 report,
detailed that Iran had succeeded over the preceding 30 years in
establishing a terror network encompassing no fewer than 8
countries in the region.
Via that network, Iran has been able to attempt at least
three attacks on the U.S. homeland over the past decade: The
2007 attempt to blow up fuel tanks underneath JFK Airport in
New York; the fall 2011 plan for widespread cyber attacks, to
be carried out jointly by Venezuela and Iran; and, most
famously, the foiled attempt to assassinate Saudi Envoy Adel
al-Jubeir in a Washington restaurant in October 2011.
In short, Iran's presence in the Americas is growing, and
so is the threat that it has the potential to pose to the U.S.
homeland from the Western Hemisphere.
The second but equally germane field where Iran is
expanding it activities is cyberspace. This capability, which
has manifested since the popularization of Stuxnet in 2009 and
2010, is not simply defensive in nature. It is aimed at both
limiting access to the Internet among ordinary Iranians, a
campaign domestically, and also an external campaign aimed at
targeting Western institutions and infrastructure.
The cybersecurity firm Cylance, in a December 2014 report,
noted that, since 2012, Iranian hackers have attacked
government agencies and companies in countries such as Saudi
Arabia, South Korea, Turkey, and beyond. Here in the United
States, Iranian entities have targeted financial institutions
like Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase and have also hacked
the Navy's unclassified email network. The study cites Israeli
expert Gabi Siboni as saying that Iran should be considered a
first-tier cyber power. It is one that can cause considerable
harm to the United States via cyberspace if it chooses to do
so.
Sadly, a sober assessment of Iran's threat potential and
its growing activism has been obscured by the ongoing talks
over Iran's nuclear program. Today, we have become incentivized
not to call attention to Iranian activities or to Iranian
ideology lest a tactical bargain with the regime over its nukes
becomes more difficult to obtain as a result. But, as I hope I
have pointed out, making that choice, making that bargain, is
something that we do at our great peril and to our great
detriment.
Thank you.
Mr. Poe. Thank you very much.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Berman follows:]
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
----------
Mr. Poe. Mr. Badran, you can have 5 minutes, and then we
will get Dr. Byman. And then we will break for votes and then
come back for questions, so everyone knows the order of events.
Thank you very much.
Mr. Badran, you can proceed.
STATEMENT OF MR. TONY BADRAN, RESEARCH FELLOW, FOUNDATION FOR
DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES
Mr. Badran. Thank you, Chairman Poe and Ranking Member
Keating. Thank you very much for inviting me to this very
timely hearing.
And I will talk a little bit about the organic relationship
between Iran and Hezbollah but also the template that they have
put together in the Middle East and how this poses a threat to
U.S. interests there. I will give a brief synopsis, and I will
be glad to talk about the details with answering your
questions.
The nature of the Iranian threat extends beyond terrorism.
A senior Iranian official put it recently to Reuters, and he
says, everything is about the balance of power in the region.
So they are focused on that issue.
And sensing that their moment has arrived, the Iranians are
in the middle of an aggressive region-wide expansionist drive.
They openly brag today about controlling four Arab capitals--
Baghdad, Beirut, Damascus, and Sana'a. In each of these
capitals, the Iranians have developed proxies either by
creating new militias on the Hezbollah model or by coopting
local actors. And they are uses these proxies to extend Iran's
reach and integrating them into a broader strategy targeting
U.S. allies and interests.
And Hezbollah is at the center of this strategy. Since the
very beginning of the Islamic revolutionary regime, that was
when Hezbollah was created, and its progenitors sought to spawn
movements along that model in the Arab world to allow them to
embed themselves in Arab societies and project influence.
As Representative Issa said, this is not new. They are the
same faces. The Defense Minister of Iran is the same person who
was the IRGC commander in Lebanon at the time of the barracks
bombing in Beirut. What is new, what the Iranians hadn't
counted on, however, is that the United States would one day
acquiesce to this bid of regional hegemony.
When Iranian officials talk about the various assets that
they are supporting in the Arab world, they have a point of
reference, which is the Hezbollah model. It is a specific
template which consists of developing political-military
structures parallel to central Arab governments, especially
where those governments are weak. And much like the Soviet
Union before, they set up proxies to dominate states.
So first there is what is called the Basij model, in
reference to the Iranian paramilitary group. This is what we
are seeing the Iranians now do in Iraq with the so-called
Popular Mobilization Units. And ``basij'' is Farsi for
``mobilization.'' So they are cloning structures. And in Syria,
they are doing it with the so-called National Defense Forces.
But the big assets really are the Hezbollah-style and
Hezbollah-trained militias that operate either in coordination
with or under direct control of the Quds Force, bear the IRGC
logo, and adhere to the ruling idealogical doctrine that
underpins the Islamic regime in Tehran. These are the militias
that now effectively control the governments, the Arab
capitals.
Now, these Shiite militias also have a new function that
had not been present before. They used to be deployed to do
terror activities in the past, in the 1980s, as we have
discussed, but now they are being used, especially the Iraqi
militias, as an expeditionary force that can be sort of sent
across borders to advance Iranian interests in neighboring
countries like Syria and so on. But there is another aspect to
this strategy, that this is not just an expeditionary force.
They also look to have their assets dominate state
institutions. And this is really a critical point.
There is a synergy now that is growing, especially in
Lebanon and Iraq, between Iran's assets and the security forces
in both countries. This is a matter of great consequence
because the United States has tacitly endorsed this synergy
because it is focused on fighting Al Qaeda. So, effectively, we
see the Iranians as partners in this fight, and the Iranians
have recognized this opening and are exploiting it, positioning
themselves as the only viable partners against Sunni extremist
groups.
Of course, this is a disastrous policy course for the
United States. As things stand today, the Obama
administration's partnership with Iran, de facto partnership
across the region has resulted in the gradual loss of all
commonality with traditional allies.
But Iran's expansionist push, of course, is aimed at
targeting these allies and their interests, as we saw in the
Golan Heights recently. Iran has set up Hezbollah-Syria down
there, and they are looking to set up a new front in the Golan.
They are leading, currently, as we speak, an integrated attack
pushing into southern Syria, to the borders of Jordan and
Israel.
Of course, as Ilan has talked about, this is a global
threat. Peru and Uruguay recently--I am sure Ilan will talk
about this some more--have caught Hezbollah members and Iranian
senior diplomats at their Embassy planning operations.
Yemen stands also as a major problem because it actually
has a dual function, on the one hand to pressure Gulf allies,
but on the other hand also, by controlling the straits of the
Red Sea, this is Iran's preferred smuggling route into Gaza via
the Sudan and the Red Sea. So they will then be in charge of
the Hormuz Straits and the Bab-el-Mandeb Straits, which makes
it a very strategic asset for them.
Now, basically, Washington cannot lose sight of the fact
that Iran remains an unreconstructed revolutionary actor, and
it cannot just simply be integrated into a new security
architecture, as the administration has made it known. And so
we need to roll back that influence and disabuse it of this
dream of regional hegemony.
There are some steps that we can discuss in the Q&A. I have
gone over my limit, so thanks again for the opportunity, and I
look forward to taking your questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Badran follows:]
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Mr. Poe. Dr. Byman?
STATEMENT OF DANIEL L. BYMAN, PH.D., PROFESSOR, SECURITY
STUDIES PROGRAM, EDMUND A. WALSH SCHOOL OF FOREIGN SERVICE,
GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY
Mr. Byman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Keating, and other
members of this subcommittee, I appreciate and am honored by
the opportunity to testify.
Rather than repeat much of what has been said, which I
agree with, I will focus on areas that have not been addressed.
But let me say from the start, I think I have a slightly
different view on Iran, which is: Iran can be exceptionally
aggressive, but Iran can also be exceptionally weak, it can be
cautious, and it is often self-defeating. And we have to look
at Iran not only as the aggressive power that it is but, also,
at times, as the foolish power that it is, as the weak power
that it is.
Iran's military is, I would say, largely pathetic,
certainly by Western standards. Its economy is in free-fall. It
lacks stature in many countries. And we have to recognize these
limits even as we try to combat its support for terrorism.
Let me begin by talking about Syria. The Syrian civil war
is a very different sort of thing for Iran and has changed much
of what Iran has done historically. First of all, the Syrian
civil war, Iran has gone all in. And, from Iran's point of
view, this is a tremendous success. It is quite fair to say
that without Iranian support Bashar al-Assad might have fallen,
and Iran recognizes that.
However, Iran had to lose relations with a number of Sunni
allies that it had been working with. And the Palestinian group
Hamas, in particular, distanced itself from Iran, although
there are incentives on both sides to stay close.
Also, what Iran is doing, what Hezbollah is doing in both
Iraq and Syria is actually more akin to counterinsurgency. They
are fighting on behalf of governments against rebels. And so,
in a way, Iran is in a different role than it often has been
historically.
Because of Hezbollah's extensive role in Syria, Hezbollah
in general is more cautious about a widespread confrontation
with Israel. Hezbollah is overextended. And that certainly
doesn't mean there will be no confrontation with Israel, but
for Hezbollah it is exceptionally risky, given how much they
have invested in the Syria conflict.
Should Iran get a nuclear weapon, which would be a horrible
thing, it might exploit that protection and become more
aggressive in supporting the groups it supports now and even
reach out to others. If it were thwarted, however, through
military means, it might use terrorists to take revenge. And,
in fact, I think this would be likely. Israel is a particularly
likely target of Iranian-backed terrorism.
I would say, under current circumstances, Iran is highly
unlikely to do the most extreme forms of terrorism, such as a
casualty attack on the 9/11 scale or attacks using
unconventional weapons. Nor is Iran likely to transfer a
nuclear weapon, if it had one, to a terrorist group. And I can
go into my reasons for that should there be interest.
Should there be additional sanctions on Iran in the name of
counterterrorism, inevitably they would be seen as sanctions
because of the nuclear program. And U.S. allies and Europe, in
particular, would have that perception regardless of the
justification given in the U.S. context.
In my view, the United States should identify red lines for
Iranian behavior, but these red lines need to be things that
the administration works with Congress on. There were repeated
Iranian violations of U.S. red lines in Iraq, and the United
States did nothing. This happened under multiple
administrations. And there needs to be consensus before Iran
acts so we know how to respond.
And, in particular, I will ask that the United States
consider focusing on plots rather than attacks. Just because an
attack does not succeed does not mean the intent was not there.
And, to me, this is an exceptionally dangerous issue, because,
often, attacks don't succeed simply due to bad luck on the part
of the attackers.
And I ask, had the attack on the Saudi Ambassador
succeeded, had the Saudi Ambassador been killed, had, say, a
dozen American diners also been killed, what would the United
States have done? And I ask that we think about that now so
that we are prepared to respond should there be a similar
provocation in the future.
I will also suggest that the United States needs to clarify
its Syria policy. Right now, the United States is bombing the
enemy of the Assad regime, and it is not surprising that there
is a widespread perception in the region that the United States
has a deal with Hezbollah, the United States has a deal with
Iran. And, regardless, I don't personally think the United
States does have that deal, but that perception matters
probably more than the reality among many U.S. allies, and that
is hurting broader U.S. interests.
I will conclude by saying that, in the end, Iran's lack of
strategic options and its general weakness will make it hard to
divorce Iran from terrorist groups. It is working with these
groups in part because it doesn't have better options, and it
is hard to change that. I think better policies can reduce the
scope and scale but not eliminate it altogether.
My formal statement goes into these points more
extensively, and I thank you for your time today.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Byman follows:]
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Mr. Poe. Thank you, gentlemen.
The subcommittee will be in recess until after the series
of two votes, so we will be in recess until then. We are
adjourned. Maybe three votes.
[Recess.]
Mr. Poe. The subcommittee will come to order. I would ask
one of the people on the very back row, if you would shut the
backdoor, I would appreciate it.
Thank you, gentlemen, for returning, assuming that you may
have never left. Thank you for your insightful testimony. It
was excellent.
I want to start with Yemen and the country of Yemen, a
supporter, generally, of the United States. Yemen--good
relationship. Are the Iranians responsible for the overthrow of
the government?
Anybody? You all have an opinion, I know.
Mr. Kagan. I will take it.
So, at Critical Threats, we have been tracking Yemen very,
very closely, and we have an analyst looking at this full-time.
I don't think that the Iranians are responsible for the
overthrow in the sense that I don't think they ordered it and I
don't think that they intended for it to happen. I think that
Iranian strategy in Yemen was, as has been described by all of
the witnesses and everyone on the panel, about getting their
tentacles into the government, getting effective control
without responsibility for elements of the security service. I
don't think that they intended to sponsor a coup d'etat.
It is not entirely clear to me that the Houthis intended to
stage a coup d'etat either. They did, effectively, and we
should call things by their right names. But I think that they
may have gotten there by having their bluff called by President
Hadi in a way that turned a power play into a coup d'etat. I
think that is possible.
But are the Iranians supporting the Houthis? Absolutely.
Are they supporting them in this play? Yep. Will they continue
to support them? You bet.
Mr. Poe. And, Mr. Berman? Different answer?
Mr. Berman. I defer to Tony.
Mr. Poe. Mr. Badran?
Mr. Badran. Oh, I am sorry. I wasn't----
Mr. Berman. No, no, no.
Mr. Poe. One of you. Mr. Badran. I am going to pick a horse
and ride it. Mr. Badran?
Mr. Badran. Okay.
Well, just to add to what Dr. Kagan said, that now that
this has happened, the Iranians are not hiding the lofty plans
that they have for the Houthis and how they want to integrate
them into their broader network in the region. So you have
posters of the Houthi leader in Tehran with writings, you know,
that the revolution, i.e. The Islamic Revolution, continues.
And so they see it as an extension of their own vision and
network of alliances in the region.
And, recently, a Web site affiliated with the IRGC laid
down what it hopes to see done by the Houthis. And it is
exactly what I have described, this template that I was talking
about. They advised them to create Popular Mobilization Units.
They advised them to integrate with the military forces so that
you will have the same system that you have in Lebanon, that
you have in Iraq, whereby you have an asset, an Iranian asset,
or ally, in this case, shaping the military security and
intelligence and broader strategic orientation of the state in
which they are operating. So I think that is what they want.
And I mentioned--I am not sure if I mentioned in my
openings remarks that Velayati, Khomeini's consigliere, as it
were, recently received a delegation of Yemenite Houthi clerics
in Tehran and again also said to them that he hopes that they
play the role of Hezbollah in Lebanon.
So they have their plans, and they see also--you know, he
even had a statement about how the road to the liberation of
Palestine will pass through Yemen and so on. So, I mean, they
have big, big plans, I think, for the Houthis.
Now, whether the Houthis end up not having much of a choice
but to go along with these or whether they pull back remains to
be seen, I think.
Mr. Poe. You mentioned in your testimony that they were in
different--Hezbollah and Iran--sponsor of terrorism was in--or
maybe it was Dr. Kagan--they are in every continent except
Antarctica. One of you said that. Which one of you said that?
You don't remember? One of you said it.
You think you did?
Okay. Well, how many countries are they involved in? If you
could be a little more specific.
Mr. Badran. Right.
Mr. Poe. In your analysis, you all's analysis, world
sponsor of terrorism--state sponsor of terrorism, how many
countries is Iran, with its affiliate Hezbollah or some other
affiliate, involved in terror, mischief, if I can use that
phrase?
Mr. Badran. I think one way to look at it--and this is not
comprehensive--one way to look at it is, wherever there is a
Shia, especially Lebanese Shia, population--for instance, in
West Africa--that gives them an opportunity, gives them a pool
of recruits. Same thing applies to South America, where there
is a large Lebanese constituency. So then they latch onto that.
And since Hezbollah now is really the dominant force among
the Lebanese Shia, that extends into these areas. So the guy,
for instance, that the Peruvian police arrested in October had
a Sierra Leonean passport. Sierra Leone is where a lot of
Lebanese Shia expats live and control much of the business.
Nigeria, same thing. And that is where you had an operation
that the Iranians were involved in with arms trafficking.
So they sit at the nexus of these things, in whatever they
can procure money, weapons, smuggling, or recruit operatives.
So I will stop at this particular angle, but I am sure----
Mr. Poe. So they are opportunists. They take the
opportunity, when a situation in a particular country meets
their needs because of the local population, that they get
involved.
How many countries would that be? That is really my
question. Just give me a ballpark figure. Somebody.
Mr. Berman. I would just chime in here at this point and
say that I think it is difficult to come up with anything
resembling an accurate tally, because what you have, in many
instances, are moments in time----
Mr. Poe. Okay.
Mr. Berman [continuing]. Sort of impressionistic events.
For example, in Thailand and in New Delhi in 2012, when you had
the attempted terrorist attacks on the Israeli persons of
interest and targets, it wasn't clear that there was a
longstanding, established Hezbollah or IRGC cell, but it was
clear that, for that particular operation, it was operating in
those countries.
That makes it difficult to quantify exactly what size the
global footprint is. But it is clear that, where there is empty
political space, as there is in Latin America, where there is
economic opportunity and the opportunity to exploit gray and
black markets, as there is in Asia, the IRGC is very heavily
involved, and, to a lesser extent, so is Hezbollah.
Mr. Poe. One more question regarding that issue. Where does
Iran get the money to be the state sponsor of terror that it
is, to pay for all of these operations? Whether they be a
moment in time or whether they be long-term, where do they get
the money?
Mr. Byman. Mr. Chairman, part of why Iran sponsors
terrorism is it is relatively cheap compared to other
alternatives.
It gives a lot of money to the Lebanese Hezbollah. So you
can cite any figure you want, but let's say several hundred
million a year. But in the vast majority of other cases, we are
talking low millions, we are talking often single-digit
personnel. And if you compare that to the cost of, say, you
know, having a brigade in a combat zone, it is peanuts.
So, in a strange way, this is a way of saving money rather
than spending money, the exception, though, being Lebanon in
the past and I would say Syria, in particular, today, where
Iran is pouring I have no idea how much, but it is, I would
say, in the high hundreds of millions, billions. I am not sure
of the exact figure.
Mr. Poe. So they get more bang for their buck. Even
probably with the cost of developing the nuclear weapons, they
can go and commit specific acts of terror for a lot less money.
Mr. Byman. I would put nuclear weapons and terrorism on,
kind of, two ends of a spectrum, where terrorism gives you lots
of local capabilities, lots of ways to do small-scale things,
and, of course, a nuclear weapon is the other extreme.
Mr. Badran. The other aspect, also, is when you have a
group like Hezbollah that has gotten into a position of
prominence in the Lebanese state, it gives them opportunities
to exploit corruption and other ventures within the Lebanese
state to make money--racketeering, drug trade, weapons
smuggling, and so on and so forth.
And then when you latch on the extra layer of Lebanese
Shiite businessmen, very well-to-do, in Latin America, West
Africa--for instance, in Angola, the Treasury Department has
designated a Shia businessman, three brothers actually,
vastly--the Tajideen brothers--very successful. They are all
Hezbollah operatives, right? So a lot of these guys they can
either extort money from or just simply incorporate into their
financial networks.
So there are multiple revenues that they can actually draw
on.
Mr. Poe. Thank you.
I will yield to the ranking member, Mr. Keating.
Mr. Keating. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Given the apparent opposite positions on the civil conflict
in Syria, what is your assessment of the current state of
relations with Iran and Hamas? And to what extent did Iran back
Hamas in the July 2014 conflict with Israel?
Mr. Badran. I think, in many respects, that war was Hamas's
way of reorienting its ship back to Iran.
The Iranians have been able to sort of get beyond the
political leadership of Hamas, Khaled Meshaal and all these
guys that broke with Syria and broke with the axis once the
Syrian revolution broke out, and reach directly to the military
commanders. So now you have a lot of more prominence of the
Qassam Brigade commanders and the various other--Islamic Jihad,
for instance, got its profile heightened as a result of Hamas's
abandonment of Bashar.
Although, now, they are right on the, sort of, road to
penance back to Tehran. And you hear a lot of reports about
impending visits to Tehran by Khaled Meshaal, for instance.
And, ironically, it is actually Bashar al-Assad who is saying,
no, not yet, he has to pay for it some more, he has to beg some
more, he has to be made to pay for his sins some more.
So I think the Iranians--Hamas knows that neither Turkey
nor Qatar, nobody else can actually replace Tehran as a source
of firepower for them. So they don't have a choice; they are
going to maintain that relationship.
Mr. Keating. Okay.
Mr. Berman. Sir, if I may, I was actually in Israel right
at the tail end of the 50-day Gaza war last year, and I had
very interesting conversations with a number of Israeli
officials, who made the point of telling me that what had
happened was essentially a strategic tie, that Hamas had gained
something in terms of renewed ideological relevance and
legitimacy, but that Israel had gained something, too, because
it had managed to erode Hamas's stockpile of short-range
rockets; it had managed, sort of, to go into Gaza and hollow
out the arsenal.
The reality is, I think, that the proper context to
understand the Gaza war is as a bid for continued relevance on
the part of Hamas. If you look at what had happened in the
months preceding, Hamas had found itself unexpectedly the
junior partner in this hybrid Palestinian Authority unity
government that Mahmoud Abbas had proposed, and their funding
stream had dried up from Iran because Hamas and Iran had
essentially fallen out over Syria, and Hamas had had its budget
zeroed out, effectively. The end result was that Hamas had to
rely on sponsors like Turkey, like Qatar to pay salaries, for
example, in the Gaza Strip.
That is not the case today. What you are seeing today is a
renewed closeness of ties between Hamas and Tehran, animated by
Hamas's being able to prove itself as a vanguard of the
Palestinian resistance, as they would term it, but also by
interest from Iran in regaining some of the ground in the Sunni
world that it has lost over the last 3 years because it has
supported Bashar al-Assad's Syria in a way that has alienated
its traditional allies or at least its traditional partners.
Mr. Keating. We have made a lot about the commonality of
Iran and U.S. in terms of ISIS. But there are reports that have
surfaced about--leave it that way--about the brutality of the
Shia militia from Iran, not only going after ISIS but then,
given the opportunity, just brutally attacking Sunni tribes.
And, of course, in the big picture, that creates an enormous
problem, you know, for any kind of success in the long run.
Do you want to comment on that aspect of their actions?
Mr. Kagan. I would love to.
I think that the commonality of interest with Iran over
ISIS is greatly exaggerated. We have an interest in separating
ISIS from the Sunni community and bringing the Sunni community
back into polities of which it has historically been a part in
Iraq and Syria and elsewhere.
Iran, whatever their statements, tends to see the Sunni
community as ISIS, and their militias certainly treat them in
that way. So the reports of brutality and mass executions and
mass graves in Diyala province are well-documented, but even,
in addition to that, one of the reasons Baghdad is relatively
secure now is because the Shia militias went into a small area
called Jurf al-Sakher, southwest of Baghdad, which was a Sunni
area and has long been an AQI and now ISIS support, and they
just moved everybody out. They just took the entire Sunni
population and moved them out. And they have no plans to bring
them back.
And that fact came up repeatedly in discussions that I had
in Baghdad, with Sunni leaders and others saying, you know, you
want the Sunni community to work with Baghdad, but, you know,
the example is Jurf al-Sakher. So this is definitely much more
of a problem than any commonality in interest we might have.
Mr. Keating. Yeah. Well, thank you.
I yield back.
Mr. Poe. I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from New York, Mr.
Higgins, for his questions.
Mr. Higgins. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for holding
this important hearing.
I just kind of want to explore the role of Qasem Soleimani.
You know, we have read in the last several months about him. He
is probably the most influential force in the Middle East, not
necessarily for good, right now--in Iraq, in Syria, in south
Lebanon with Hezbollah.
I am interested in your thoughts about him, and his
influence embellished or is that an accurate description of his
outsized influence?
Mr. Kagan. Well, he is, in fact, extremely important. He
does work directly to the Supreme Leader. We call it the IRGC
Quds Force. There is the notion that he is subordinated to the
IRGC commander, General Jafari. In reality, I do not believe
that he is actually subordinated. He does work directly to the
Supreme Leader, and they have a very close relationship.
And Soleimani has bragged to American commanders in the
region about how he is their opposite number and how he is in
control of things. And there is a lot of bravado there, but he
clearly is in control of a lot of the military operations that
are going on in Iraq and Syria, especially by militia elements.
One of the things that our team has been observing,
however, that is very interesting is that there has been a
conscious and deliberate campaign by IRGC senior commanders
over the past several months to build him up, and it has become
a mayor regime PR objective to establish him as a major figure.
We are still noodling what that is about. It is not entirely
clear what the regime or this element of it intends to
accomplish.
But he is definitely dominant in the region, but there is
also a campaign to make him seem even more significant than he
might be.
Mr. Berman. If I could add just 10 seconds on what Dr.
Kagan said, I think that is exactly right.
It is necessary to understand Soleimani in the two
constituencies in which he moves. The first is the external
one, in which he is a fixer and he is sort of a jack of all
trades in Iraq and, to some extent, in Syria, as well. He has
famously boasted to General Petraeus when Petraeus was in
charge of U.S. Forces in Iraq that he was his opposite number,
that he was in control of Iranian policy, not only in Iraq but
also in Afghanistan and in Syria.
But the messaging campaign that you see coming out of the
regime now--and it is, by the way, broader than just the IRGC.
It looks very much like a public diplomacy push on the part of
the Iranian regime. It has cast Soleimani in the light of a
savior of the Islamic republic.
Because one of the things, I believe, that the regime is
trying to do is to rally public opinion around Iran's
expeditionary forces. And the perfect target of that is ISIS.
Soleimani is now at the tip of the spear in the Iranian fight
against ISIS, and he is being perceived more and more not like
a knight-errant on the part of the Supreme Leader but as a
champion for the regime itself. It is one that has, I think,
rebounded to the benefit of the stature of the IRGC writ large
within Iran itself.
Mr. Badran. Just very quickly, also, in this particular
angle in southern Syria, the recent strike that the Israelis
did there targeted a major general in the Quds Force that
actually was brought in by Soleimani, so he is very much seen
as Soleimani's guy in Syria.
In addition, it targeted Jihad Mughniyeh, Imad Mughniyeh's
son. Jihad Mughniyeh, there are a couple of stories about him.
One was that he was living as a playboy in Beirut, and the
party, because of the importance of his name and the legacy of
his father, took him and shipped to Tehran, where, actually,
Soleimani took him under his wing. And you will see a lot--at
the funeral of Soleimani's mother, Jihad Mughniyeh was right by
his side, and he was kind of seen as his protege, probably
being groomed for some future role. And the fact that he was
with Soleimani's man in southern Syria suggests that they had a
lot of plans for him as that.
But, as Dr. Kagan and Berman have said, basically there is
a huge information operation that the Quds Force is running,
with Qasem Soleimani popping up in pictures everywhere on every
front, including, now, supposedly in southern Syria as they are
making a push to the south. Nobody knows if it is real or not;
it is just that they want to put his face that he is on the
front line, Iran is on the front line through Qasem Soleimani
on every front, both with the Israelis and with ISIS, in the
region.
Mr. Byman. Sir, I will only briefly add that, although we
focus a lot on Soleimani, the Quds Force, the IRGC, they report
to the Supreme Leader. They reflect Iranian policy. Policies
are coordinated. They are quite good at what they do, and they
also are given some freedom to act. But, in general, we always
need to remember this is Iranian policy rather than,
necessarily, Quds Force policy.
Mr. Higgins. I am out of time.
Mr. Poe. I don't use this word very often, but I will be
liberal with the time if you have another question or two.
Mr. Higgins. Well, the recent Shia militia victory over
ISIS in Iraq by the Badr organization--who is the primary
influence in the Badr organization?
Mr. Kagan. So the Badr organization is commanded by Hadi
al-Amiri, who is an Iraqi. He is a subordinate, basically, of
Qasem Soleimani, along with another Iraqi, nominally, named
Muhandis, who is the leader of the Kata'ib Hezbollah militia,
and he is also a subordinate of Soleimani.
Mr. Higgins. If Congress authorizes the President to commit
ground troops in Iraq, aren't we entering into a similar
situation that we entered into in 2003?
I mean, it is not as though, you know, American troops
would just be fighting ISIS, which--it is estimated there are
some 30,000 fighters, which I still don't quite understand, and
anybody who looks at it rationally should question this.
You have the Peshmerga, which is 190,000 fighters proven to
be Western/United States allies, proven to be reliable, proven
to be experienced. You have the Iraqi National Army; let's say
conservatively it is another 175,000. And you have the Shia
militias. And then you have, you know, an estimated 31,000 ISIS
fighters. We should be--the math doesn't add up to a situation
that we have right now, where ISIS is still dominant in that
country.
And my sense is that Soleimani will be using these Shia
militias to fight both ISIS and the United States, because that
is their history. And the bottom line is, for the second term
of Nouri al-Maliki, Soleimani cut the deal not in Baghdad but
in Tehran. And, you know, the consensus was that we will all be
part of this bad deal under one condition, that the Americans
leave.
I am just very concerned about what happens if we commit
ground troops, even on a limited basis, to Iraq to fight ISIL
because we will be fighting other forces that we fought
previously, as well. That is my last thought.
Mr. Kagan. If I could respond to that?
Mr. Higgins. Sure.
Mr. Kagan. It is a very legitimate concern. And I think
that it is quite possible that a significant American presence
in Iraq could be targeted by Iranian militias. But I am a bit
more concerned about what is likely to happen if we don't
involve ourselves and if we don't offer the Iraqis an
alternative.
I would not be supportive of sending American troops into
Diyala. That is controlled by Badr; it is controlled by
Soleimani. The Iraqi Army unit there is infiltrated. But our
general assessment is that there are Iraqi units in Anbar, in
Ninawa, elsewhere, that are not controlled by the Iranians and
that don't want to be controlled by the Iranians and that want
to have an alternative.
And I would submit, this isn't really about ground forces
versus not ground forces. I mean, we have boots on the ground
there now. You know, we don't say that, but that is--they have
boots, and they are on the ground. We are in it. And I think we
have had a positive impact.
I think we need to continue in a way that makes it clear to
the Iraqis that they can have one set of advisors at any given
moment. They can have Iranian advisors, or they can have
American advisors. And that goes unit by unit. I think that you
will find that, in a lot of places, they will prefer to have
American advisors because we can bring a lot more to the table
if we choose.
Now, the Iranians will resist that. Will they attack us? I
don't know. There is a lot that goes into that calculous. And,
of course, they can attack us anyway if we are in the region.
But I think that we need to be very cognizant of the danger
of being absent from this conflict in such a way that we give
the Iraqis proof when they say, ``Hey, the Iranians are here,
and you are not. You know, what do you want us to do?''
Mr. Badran. There is another concern I think that we have
to keep in mind, is that there is a reason why the United
States has failed to recruit significant Sunni tribes to fight
this fight. And the reason ISIS's power is so magnified is not
because of how many people it has; it is because of the
alliances that it has among the Sunni tribes.
And the reason why it is capable to have this alliance is
because of the nature of Iranian influence in the Baghdad
government and the security forces, Ministry of Interior in
particular. The Badr organization is very strong in the
Ministry of Interior. In fact, the head of the Ministry of
Interior is very much a subordinate of Hadi al-Amiri that Dr.
Kagan mentioned.
And so I think, once the--this is what I talked about in my
testimony in terms of the synergy or the fusion between the
Shiite militias on the one hand and the central government and
how it completely complicates our ability when it comes to the
Sunnis, both on partnering with the Sunnis and on defeating
Sunni radical groups like ISIS.
So I think the perception of us coming into Iraq sort of
shoulder-to-shoulder with a very dubious, penetrated central
government to fight Sunnis is going to harm, I think, our
alliances with a lot of Sunnis unless we, sort of, really
leverage our interference to review how we deal with the
Baghdad government and what the nature of the Baghdad
government is.
Mr. Poe. I thank the gentleman from New York.
The Chair will now recognize one of our new members, Ms.
Kelly from Illinois, for her questions.
Ms. Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to thank the committee and the witnesses for the
opportunity to have this important discussion today.
I just came from the House floor, and we had a moment the
silence for Kayla Mueller. And her death is a real reminder to
us of all the challenges that we face in this world.
As we discuss global threats and Iran, I wanted to ask, how
do you see Iranian objectives in Iraq different than the United
States objectives?
Mr. Kagan. Well, I think the Iranians have a number of very
clear objectives, and one of them that is in conflict is their
objective is to get us out and keep us out forever, and our
objective is, or should be, to continue to play some role. And
I am not talking here about military. I am talking about
influence--political, economic, and so forth.
The Iranians very much would like Iraq to be subordinate to
them, loyal to them, or at least hostile to us, and they have
been working hard to make that happen. They are determined to
ensure that there is a Shia government in power in Baghdad and
that the Sunni are marginalized, because they see the Iraqi
Sunni largely as a threat. And they have a number of other
objectives with regard to the Kurds where we may or may not be
a little bit crossed.
But the most important conflict in our interest is not just
in Iraq but it is around the region. The Iranians are very
explicit about this in their statements and their actions.
Their objective is to eject us from the Middle East entirely.
That is their goal. And they work on making that happen. Our
objective is to remain engaged in a region that is of critical
strategic importance.
Ms. Kelly. Uh-huh.
Mr. Kagan. As long as those interests are crossed in that
way, we are going to be having problems.
Ms. Kelly. Did you want to----
Mr. Berman. Just to add a layer of complexity to what Dr.
Kagan said, I think it is necessary to understand Iran's
objectives in Iraq through prism of ideology as well.
When the Ayatollah Khomeini swept to power in Tehran 36
years ago this month, he was both the rahbar, the political
leader of the Islamic republic, and the marja taqlid, the
ideological religious model of emulation.
The current Supreme Leader was a consensus candidate that
emerged in 1989 after Khomeini's death. He is superceded in the
hierarchy of Shiite theology by a number of clerics, most
importantly a gentleman by the name of Ali Sistani, who is an
Iraqi cleric.
So, when we talk in the context of what Iran wants in Iraq,
the question of Iraqi independence is not just about Iraqi
political independence; it is also about Iraq's ideological
independence. Because an independent Iraq that is capable of
embracing the quietest tradition that Sistani espouses will be
both an ideological and a political threat to Iran. So Iran's
objectives in Iraq are not only to keep us out but to keep
other interpretations of Shiite Islam down.
Mr. Byman. I will add only briefly that Iran also wants a
weak Iraq and is comfortable with a low level of instability.
Iran does not want the scale of violence that is happening in
Iraq now, but they are much more comfortable with the low level
because it makes the Iraqis dependent on Iran, and they are
quite pleased with that. So some degree of strife and keeping
Iraq off balance, in a way, serves the Iranian goals that Dr.
Kagan identified.
Ms. Kelly. Where do you see Iran's influence in Iraq? Like,
where is it strongest, and where is it weakest?
Mr. Byman. What the Iranians are very good at, of course,
is working with an array of Shia groups. And they have very
good ties to the main government, to the Abadi government.
However, Iran hedges its bets. So it works with groups,
Shia groups, that at times shoot at each other. And it works
with violent ones; it works with more moderate ones. It also
works with an array of Kurdish groups. It has reached out to
some of the crazy Sunni groups that would happily kill a Shia
if they saw one. So Iran is almost painfully pragmatic in its
willingness to work with groups.
Its influence is strongest, I would say, certainly in the
Shia areas. Also, it has a lot of local influence along its
border. Iran looks at Iraq not just as a country but as a
series of regions and cities and towns, and it tries to buy
influence at the local level, as well.
Ms. Kelly. Anyone else?
Mr. Kagan. I think that Iran's influence varies. I think,
overall, Iran's influence in Iraq is higher than it has ever
been. But it does vary, and it is changing, and interesting
things are going on, primarily, I would say, because of the
degree to which the Iranian-backed militias have effectively
shown that they are completely independent of the Iraqi
political leadership and actually are acting just as
subordinates of Soleimani.
And that has had the effect of scaring the Shia political
leadership in Iraq about these militias and about what the
Iranians are actually trying to do. Does it reduce Iranian
influence? You know, not necessarily. But it has created, I
would say, a different atmosphere in which that influence is
received.
And, again, I think, frankly, it is an opportunity for us,
because Hadi al-Amiri and Muhandis have shown their hands, and
they have shown Iran's hand also, much more than they have in
the past, not in terms of their activities, because they are
not doing much that is very different from what they have done
before, but in terms of their posturing.
And it is interesting to see--Muhandis is a guy who was
always a shadowy figure, because he was known to be, you know,
working with the Quds Force and he was known to be running a
militia for the Iranians, and generally you didn't see him a
whole lot. Recently, he has been very prominent. He has been
puffing his chest out and making much of himself and making it
clear that he is a strong fighter. That doesn't play well with
the traditional, established Shia elites and, I think, with a
lot of the Iraqi Shia population that is concerned about this.
So I think the dynamics are not positive for us, but they
are complicated in ways that we could, I think, potentially be
taking advantage of.
Ms. Kelly. Thank you.
I yield back.
Mr. Poe. I thank the gentlelady.
The Chair will now recognize one of our newer members, as
well, from the State of Illinois, Mr. Zeldin--New York. Sorry.
Mr. Zeldin. That is okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
And I appreciate everyone being here for this important
hearing.
Taking a step back and, just generally, as we are watching
the negotiations taking place between the Obama administration
and the Iranian Government, I was struck, not too far back in
history, when the State Department had indicated that they had
reached a tentative deal, and the Iranian Government literally
within 24 hours was refuting the terms of that agreement.
So who are we really negotiating--like, playing this out
for a second, let's say over the course of the next month or so
the President negotiates a deal just to negotiate a deal and it
contains foolish concessions that can put the Iranian
Government within 60, 90 days of being able to have a nuclear
weapon. What is next?
From a 30,000-foot level, you are watching this unfold. And
each of you have a lot of experience and background with this.
What is next? What is the risk? Who are the players? What do we
expect the Iranian Government to do next?
For me, personally, I don't trust them. I wish that, you
know, instead of us reducing sanctions we would be increasing
sanctions.
So just--I mean, it is an open question for you. But, you
know, I have four experts here. I am able to ask this real
basic question. Where are we going?
Mr. Kagan. I think it is a great question, and I think it
is a very important one.
You started to ask the question, who are we negotiating
with? I actually think that is pretty clear. We are negotiating
with the Supreme Leader. And there is a lot of, you know, rug-
merchant negotiation going on, and the public statements don't
necessarily shape me that much in terms of what the ultimate
deal is going to look like, if there is going to be a deal.
Everyone is shaping the environment.
But what is next? I think that if we have any kind of a
deal that provides some kind of sanction relief--and I don't
think we can have a deal the Iranians would accept that doesn't
provide some kind of sanctions relief--I think Iranians will
take advantage of that to try to stabilize their economy, to
put through some economic reforms that they are working on, and
to try to modernize their economy in a way that will make it
more competitive and more self-sustaining.
There are some tensions in this regard, I think, between
President Rouhani and Ayatollah Khomeini. Khomeini seems to
want to drive for sort of autarky to make Iran completely
independent from the international community so it will never
be vulnerable to sanctions again. Rouhani is a better student
of economics and seems to understand that that is not going to
work.
But, for now, the dispute isn't very important, because
they are clearly working on trying to get their economic feet
underneath them, and any kind of sanctions relief in the first
instance they will put toward trying to get that under control.
What will they then do? They will continue to pursue their
objectives of driving us out of the region, establishing
regional hegemony, and, of course, in my opinion, maintaining
the ability to develop a nuclear weapon at the moment of their
choosing.
Mr. Berman. Sir, if I could just add to what Dr. Kagan
mentioned, I think the economic metrics are actually very
compelling, and it is useful to sort of understand what we are
looking at.
In 2012, as a result of U.S. and European sanctions levied
on Iran, the Iranian economy constricted by roughly 5 percent.
In 2013, it constricted by about 3 percent. Last year, it grew
marginally as a result of sanctions relief, and it is on track
this year to grow by between 1\1/2\ and 3 percent.
What this shows you is that, in the interim, in the year
and a half that Iran has had greater breathing room, it has
used that time judiciously to put its economic house in order.
It has also, on a parallel track, as the State Department has
noted, stepped up its sponsorship of global instability, as
manifested in places like Syria and Yemen.
And so I think there is very much a causal relationship
here. Terrorism is cheap, but it is not cost-free. The Iranian
regime sees this as a deep-seated imperative. If it has more
money, it is likely to invest more in it. I think it is quite
as simple as that.
Mr. Zeldin. Yeah.
You know, I see, obviously, the--we all see the economic
benefit for Iran to be engaging in these negotiations. We see
the strategic benefit for Iran. The problem is Iran is here and
the U.S. here, Iran is here, the U.S. is here, Iran stays here,
the U.S. is here.
And, you know, it is like here in American politics we are
trying--you know, we have a President who is all politics all
the time. His only version of compromise is to get it 100
percent his way. And now we are oversees with an enemy that
does not respect weakness, they only respect strength.
I advocate for a stronger, more consistent foreign policy.
We are negotiating with an element that is not our friend, who
should not be trusted. They get these benefits, but they are
going to be literally a turnkey away from, you know, having a
nuclear weapon. They want to wipe Israel off the map. They will
continue to be state sponsors of terrorism. The economic
benefit will drive their efforts to be state sponsors of
terrorism.
I am just--I am greatly concerned, and I do not trust that
negotiating partner on the other side. And I appreciate the
chairman for having this hearing to bring some light to it,
because I hope that something cracks the code to turn the tide.
That is why I welcome the Prime Minister coming here to address
a joint session of Congress. And I hope that we don't make a
deal just to make a deal.
I yield back.
Mr. Poe. The gentleman yields back his time.
The Chair now will recognize the gentleman from California,
Mr. Sherman, for his questions.
Mr. Sherman. I would point out that Reagan negotiated with
Brezhnev, Roosevelt negotiated with Stalin. And so it is not a
fair political attack to say Obama must be a bad President
because he negotiates with Iran. You make peace, or try to make
peace, with your enemies, not your friends. And, of course, we
negotiated with North Vietnam as they were killing our troops
on the ground.
Whatever deal is reached, or if a deal is reached, with the
Iranians is basically a 2-year deal; that is to say, the
President will use what he sees as his power to waive sanctions
for 2 years.
I have come to listen to my Republican colleagues, and when
asked what are the chances that their leader, Mr. Boehner, is
going to bring to the floor the ``Thank God Obama is President
and Did Such a Great Job of Negotiating a Superb Deal with Iran
Act of 2015''--and I am asked what the chances of that are, I
say, well, what are the chances that Julia Roberts calls me
this afternoon?
So it is a 2-year deal, if there is a deal at all, subject
then to the next Congress and the next President. It is
guaranteed to be a poor deal because we are not in a position
to get a great deal. What are our other options? The military
option has barely been discussed here because it is highly
unattractive, especially to the American people at this time.
And so I want to focus a little bit on sanctions. Iran
doesn't just want a bomb. Nobody wants a bomb. You want half a
dozen bombs. You certainly want to test one when you want to
start being treated like a nuclear power.
And so we talk about sanctions. The most successful use of
sanctions was against South Africa, which were universally
embraced, totally multilateral, and took years to be effective.
So I would ask the panel here, help us draft the additional
sanctions act, whether it is of 2015 or 2017--we might as well
as start now; it is probably 2015.
But, also, comment on whether there are any sanctions you
could imagine that wouldn't just threaten Iran with a mild
recession, you know, negative-2-percent growth instead of
positive-2-percent growth. Is there any sanction that you could
suggest to us that would threaten the regime's survival in the
timeframe it would take to create two or three nuclear weapons?
Dr. Byman?
Mr. Byman. As I am sure you know, Mr. Sherman, sanctions
don't work quickly, right? If we look at South Africa as the
shining example of their success, that was a decade-long
process. And----
Mr. Sherman. And they didn't cause, like, rioting in the
streets. They caused a decision by what ultimately was a
government that made a rational decision. I mean, we deplore
apartheid, but eventually that group--I mean, it was not the
Supreme Leader that let Mandela out of jail and gave him the
Presidency of the country.
Go on.
Mr. Byman. And the reason sanctions, I think, led Iran to
the negotiating table was because they involved a wide array of
U.S. Allies and Iranian trading partners and they hit Iran
quite deeply. And to sustain sanctions and to make them more
effective, you need that comprehensive approach. And we will
only get that if our allies believe that we are not eager to
reject a deal with Iran.
And so I don't think anyone trusts the Iranians. I have
heard the President say repeatedly he does not trust the
Iranians. But if we are seen as not negotiating, we will lose
allied support, and that is bad for sanctions.
Mr. Sherman. I would point out that, unless we are willing
to do the secondary sanctions approach--which is called for by
present statute. But to say to Germany, ``You sell one paper
clip to Iran, we are not going to let you send a single
Mercedes to the United States,'' I mean, those are fighting
words. That is outside the pale of our relationship with
Europe. But unless we are willing to do that, Germany will sell
nonlethal materials to Iran in a way that helps their economy
just as soon as they are convinced that the United States is
not behaving reasonably.
And, oh, by the way, if President Obama says we are not
behaving reasonably, Congress will not be able to convince them
to the contrary. Obama may not be popular with everybody in
Congress; he is considerably more popular in Europe.
I will go on to the next witness, Mr. Badran. What is the
Achilles' heel that we ought to be aiming at?
Mr. Badran. Well, I am no sanctions expert, but I think the
oil sector, I think, was one of the areas that people were
looking to to hit hard.
Mr. Sherman. Clearly, taking Kirk Menendez down to zero is,
like, first on everybody's list of----
Mr. Badran. Right.
Mr. Sherman [continuing]. Additional sanctions.
Mr. Berman?
Mr. Berman. If you don't mind, I would like to amplify a
point that you made about secondary sanctions on trading
partners of the United States that also happen to be trading
partners of Iran.
In this particular case, there is no country that looms
larger than China. China consumes about 60 percent of Iranian
total global oil exports, and it has ramped up consumption.
Since the administration has applied a moratorium on reporting
with regard to the 2010 Comprehensive Iran Sanctions,
Accountability, and Divestment Act, the Chinese have actually
increased their imports of Iranian oil, which means that,
without Chinese acquiescence to trimming Iran's global economic
footprint, it is going to be very difficult to really put Iran
in a box in a meaningful way. And that means----
Mr. Sherman. So we can hurt their economy, but, without
China, we can't threaten regime survival.
Mr. Berman. That is right.
Mr. Sherman. And so we would have to have not only the
political gumption that it takes to be opposed to Iran, we
would need to take on Walmart. I don't know if the people in
the room are powerful enough to do that.
I will go on to Dr. Kagan.
Mr. Kagan. Congressman, there is no magic silver bullet
that we could, you know, pass along a sanction and take down
the regime. And I wasn't aware that we were even talking about
trying to take down the regime. The purpose of the sanctions--
--
Mr. Sherman. Well, in this room, many have said that this
regime will hold on to its nuclear program unless it faces a
risk to regime survival, that if it is just a matter of a bad
day on the Tehran stock market or a bad year on the Tehran
stock market, they would willingly pay that price.
Mr. Kagan. I would need to think about whether I agree with
that or disagree with it. But what I would say is that if the
discussion is now about how to threaten the regime's survival,
that is a very different context from the discussion in which
we have been talking about sanctions hitherto, which have
really been fundamentally focused on putting enough pressure on
the regime to make the Supreme Leader change his calculus. And
I agree with you that that is not going to be easy.
Mr. Sherman. I would just say nobody gives up their
firstborn just to get a lower ATM fee.
And I yield back.
Mr. Poe. I thank the gentleman.
Thank all members of the subcommittee for being here today,
and especially our witnesses. It has been excellent.
All of your statements, official statements, will be made
part of the record.
And this subcommittee is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:15 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]
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