iWar

by Bill Gertz

  Behind the scenes, Obama had authorized his administration to secretly begin supplying large payments of cash to the Iranian regime—cash that almost certainly will be used to fuel Iran’s arms buildup and covert support for international terrorism.

  The most dangerous payment involved the transfer of $1.7 billion in foreign cash paid to settle claims made by Iran involving weapons sales to the predecessor regime. In January 2016, an unmarked chartered aircraft flew into Tehran carrying the first installment, $400 million in cash stacked on wooden pallets in euros, Swiss francs, and other currencies.

  The same day the cash arrived, January 16, Iran released four Americans who had been unjustly held prisoner by the regime. It was clearly a ransom payment for their freedom.

  Months later Obama would lie to the American people about the cash ransom, claiming it was no such thing. The cash was to pay back Iran for pre-1979 arms purchases that were not fulfilled. “We do not pay ransom for hostages,” Obama said. Days later he would be contradicted by his State Department spokesman, John Kirby, who, under questioning from reporters, admitted the cash transfer was delayed until the prisoners were released, in other words, that the money was paid as part of a prisoner ransom. Iran’s state-run media had already described the cash as ransom, further boosting the Iranian information warfare narrative that the mullahs had outmaneuvered the Obama administration on the nuclear deal.

  The failure to stop Iran’s nuclear program through cyber operations and other information warfare is an American foreign policy disaster. It was the result of a combination of two factors. First, the Iran deal grew out of Obama’s misguided foreign policy realism, which he asserted was based on views of former White House national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, under President George H. W. Bush. As noted earlier, Scowcroft’s brand of realpolitik produced the embarrassing secret visit to Beijing in support of China’s rulers—days after the blood of unarmed protesters, crushed under the tracks of People’s Liberation Army tanks in Tiananmen Square, had been washed clean. The second factor was Obama’s open sympathy for Muslim states, a kinship based on his experience growing up in Jakarta, Indonesia, from 1967 to 1971. Obama asserted in 2007 that he believed America’s biggest failure since the end of World War II was a lack of sensitivity to other nations, and that the United States needed to project respect rather than arrogance—coincidentally, a favored word of Iran’s rulers to describe their hatred for America.

  Just what American arrogance Obama referred to was never mentioned in the 2007 interview. But it highlighted Obama’s bias against the United States, a bias steeped in the false liberal left nostrum that America remains a racist and imperialist power to be brought to heel in world affairs. It was in that same New York Times interview in 2007 that Obama made his often-quoted statement that the Muslim daily call to prayer is “one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset.”

  Appeasement of Iran also had its roots in Obama’s 2009 Cairo university speech, when he made the false statement to the world that radical Islamic terror was not to blame for tensions between Islam and the West, but rather colonialism was. Obama dismissed the threat of Islamic terrorism as the work of a “small but potent minority of Muslims.” Obama suggested, as he did repeatedly during his presidency, that it is Americans who are racist and bigoted. Obama promised that as president he would “fight against negative stereotypes of Islam wherever they appear.”

  During his presidency, few news reporters with regular access to Obama asked what he meant in the Cairo remarks, or how he would go about addressing the alleged anti-Islam bias Obama claimed was ingrained within Americans. The first time the public would learn more about these inner views was the interview the president gave to Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic. Obama for the first time explained that in his worldview, the United States needs to be hardheaded and bighearted. He asserted that the U.S. military had been overused in seeking to solve world problems and that America was overextended around the world and needed to cut back. In terms of the Cairo speech, Obama asserted that Muslims needed to stop blaming Israel for all the Middle East’s troubles and address problems of regional governance—code for corrupt rulers—along with Islam, which he asserted must adapt to modernity. “My thought was, I would communicate that the U.S. is not standing in the way of this progress, that we would help, in whatever way possible, to advance the goals of a practical, successful Arab agenda that provided a better life for ordinary people,” Obama said.

  One of the most alarming disclosures occurred late in his presidency when Obama revealed he did not believe America’s enemies were really enemies, nor America’s friends its friends, such as Israel. During his tenure in the White House, he downgraded close U.S.–Saudi Arabia ties in favor of closer ties to Iran, an Islamist state with extremist views that sees the United States as its main enemy.

  Formally, we won’t know until 2022 whether the Iran deal’s hoped-for goal of a less dangerous Iran comes true. That is when most restrictions on Iran’s nuclear development will end. On August 5, 2015, Obama gave a speech at American University in Washington, D.C., that contained numerous falsehoods about the Iran nuclear deal. First, he stated the detailed arrangement would permanently prohibit Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. In the text of the 159-page deal it states that the Tehran government “reaffirms that under no circumstances will Iran ever seek, develop or acquire any nuclear weapons.” Thus with only a promise not to develop nuclear weapons “ever,” Iran was able to win a string of concessions, including more than $100 billion in cash, access to arms and other markets, and regional prestige that is boosting one of the worst regimes in modern history.

  The Israel-based Institute for National Security Studies challenged the White House meme that the deal was an unprecedented victory for those seeking to permanently prevent Tehran from getting nuclear weapons. “Our sense is that a string of P5+1 [the acronym for the six nations that signed the agreement] concessions over the past year on the critical issues of the sunset clause, verification, the possible military dimensions issue, and Iran’s continued work on its nuclear infrastructure, coupled with Iran’s proven non-compliance with its [Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty] obligations, make it uncertain that the deal will keep a nuclear weapon out of Iran’s hands,” INSS analysts Ephraim Asculai, Emily B. Landau, and Shimon Stein stated. “When one adds to the mix the $100 billion (or more) Iran will receive at the outset, Iran’s enhanced regional position, and Iranian attitudes that reject the notion of a changed relationship with the U.S., the basis for concern only grows.”

  A close examination of the fine print of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action reveals Iran will be free to develop nuclear weapons within a decade—even without the anticipated violation of the accord. The nuclear agreement contains numerous loopholes and vague provisions, such as references to Iran’s “voluntary” compliance with terms of the accord, rather than mandatory adherence. The overly bureaucratic process for addressing violations and noncompliance outlined in the agreement also means Iran would not be penalized for cheating. Under the agreement, three Iranian entities were freed from international sanctions. They include three elements of the Islamic shock troops that play a dominant role in keeping the theocratic regime in power and for exporting terrorism and Islamist ideology: the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) air force, the IRGC’s Al Ghadir Missile Command, and the Quds Force, the covert action force that has been linked to terror attacks and terrorist support throughout the world. The Quds Force is regarded as Iran’s main foreign policy tool for special operations and terrorist support to Islamic militants, including Hezbollah and the Taliban.

  Iran’s 20,000 centrifuges were to be reduced to 5,000 centrifuges, and nuclear research and development were permitted to continue at Natanz under the agreement. Most of Iran’s stockpile of low-enriched uranium was to be shipped out of the country, but the means of producing enriched uranium would be only temporarily curtailed. After ten years, under the provisions of the Joi
nt Comprehensive Plan of Action, limits on uranium enrichment will be lifted, allowing Iran to design and develop more advanced centrifuges. The International Atomic Energy Agency, which was unable to enforce Iranian compliance with international controls on nuclear technology before the nuclear agreement, was given the main role of monitoring previously known and other declared facilities with a team of up to 150 inspectors. Uranium mines will be watched and dismantled centrifuges will be stockpiled.

  After eight years of the agreement, the United States and the European Union agreed to lift conventional arms sanctions on Iran. This will permit Tehran to both export and import advanced conventional arms and ballistic missiles, opening the way for destabilizing arms transfers from Iran’s three main weapons backers—Russia, China, and North Korea. In Annex 1 of the accord, Iran will be allowed in fifteen years to again reprocess spent nuclear fuel, and to build plutonium and uranium from spent fuel, key sources of fuel for nuclear weapons. After fifteen years, a ban on producing or acquiring plutonium or uranium metals ends completely, and research on plutonium and uranium metallurgy, casting, and forming will be allowed. These critical functions are key elements for developing nuclear weapons. By 2024, Iran’s limit on possessing 5,060 centrifuges in thirty cascade units at Natanz also ends, and the ban on uranium enrichment of no more than 3.67 percent ends after fifteen years. Enrichment of 20 percent is needed for nuclear bombs. Iran’s stockpile of low-enriched uranium will be limited to 300 kilograms. The remaining stockpile likely will be used in covert efforts by Iran to produce highly enriched uranium for bombs and missile warheads, if IAEA monitoring is circumvented, something Iran showed itself easily able to do in the past. Considering that Iran violated its original obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which violation gave it the means to gain the technology for a nuclear program in the first place, Iranian cheating on the nuclear agreement is almost a certainty.

  Since the Iran nuclear deal was signed, approved by Congress, and bolstered by a United Nations Security Council resolution, Iran has continued to violate both the spirit and the letter of the agreement. Germany’s domestic security service, the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV), revealed in its 2015 annual report that Iranian agents aggressively sought to acquire nuclear-weapons-related technology and goods in the federal republic. Despite the Iran agreement, “the illegal proliferation-sensitive procurement activities in Germany registered by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution persisted in 2015 at what is, even by international standards, a quantitatively high level,” the report said, noting pursuit of “items which can be used in the field of nuclear technology.”

  The Iranians also sought missile technology—a capability that was never addressed in the Iran nuclear agreement because it remained a steadfast Iranian demand throughout the negotiations. The missile program provides the clearest indication that Iran is pushing ahead with nuclear weapons development because its long-range missiles are a strategic weapons capability principally used as a nuclear delivery system. In April 2016, Iran conducted the first launch of a space-launch vehicle that U.S. intelligence agencies concluded was in reality cover for future development of a long-range nuclear missile. The Simorgh launch was closely monitored by intelligence agencies, and was carried out in violation of the UN Security Council resolution that required Iran to forgo nuclear missile tests for eight years.

  Similarly, Iranian activities in support of terrorism showed no signs of lessening after the Iran nuclear agreement. Iran continued to support Hezbollah, the Iranian proxy terrorist group centered in Lebanon, and to back the Palestinian terror group Hamas. The Washington Institute for Near East Policy assessed that after the signing of the nuclear accord, Iranian-backed terrorism actually increased. “It is clear that Iran’s support for terrorism has only increased since the deal was reached, and officials cannot feign surprise on the matter,” wrote Washington Institute analyst Matthew Levitt on the one-year anniversary of the nuclear accord in 2016. “Given Iran’s ongoing support for terrorism and regional instability and the administration’s repeated insistence that it would hold Tehran’s feet to the fire on these very issues, the [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action’s] first anniversary presents Washington with a perfect opportunity to reassess the regime’s menacing behavior and take steps to hold it accountable.”

  Not surprisingly, the Obama administration and participants in Ben Rhodes’s information warfare echo chamber were silent on all these issues.

  • • •

  At the same time the White House was vigorously pursuing the Iran nuclear deal in 2012, the Pentagon sounded the alarm on the growing threat posed by Iran’s increasingly capable cyberattacks against financial institutions, government information networks, and critical infrastructure computers used to control the electrical grid and other vital systems. The Iranian cyber threat is real and growing. In the fall of 2012, the NSA detected a major cyberattack against a U.S. financial institution that represented much more than a relatively minor attempt to temporarily disrupt the institution’s operations. “Iran’s cyber aggression should be viewed as a component, alongside efforts like support for terrorism, [to] the larger covert war Tehran is waging against the west,” the classified Joint Staff report, dated September 14, concluded. The J-2, the intelligence directorate of the Joint Staff, stated that the specific bank cyberattack had been unsuccessful. But the operation signaled the beginning of a major covert information warfare campaign by the Iranian government against the United States. The report was an indication that the U.S. military was more honest in dealing with the threat posed by Iran and was less impacted by the propaganda and disinformation campaign of Obama and Rhodes, which had as an overriding goal the obscuring of all Iranian threats and avoidance of any public discussion of them, in order to facilitate completion of the nuclear deal with Tehran. Officials disclosed the bank cyberattack to me to demonstrate that the military would not be silenced despite Obama’s attempt to obscure the mounting Iranian information warfare threat.

  As with Russia and China, Iran too learned beginning in the early 2000s that cyber and information warfare were asymmetric weapons for attacking their main enemy, the United States. By the mid-2010s, Iran had emerged as an increasing strategic threat to the United States because of the grave risks it posed to vital U.S. information networks and industrial control systems that operate critical infrastructures, such as the electric grid, financial networks, communications systems, transportation, and other vital functions. James Clapper, the director of national intelligence, testified in Congress in February 2016 that Iran was using covert information warfare. “Iran used cyber espionage, propaganda, and attacks in 2015 to support its security priorities, influence events, and counter threats—including against U.S. allies in the region,” Clapper said. An earlier threat assessment in 2012 concluded that “Iran’s intelligence operations against the United States, including cyber capabilities, have dramatically increased in recent years in depth and complexity.” American intelligence agencies categorized Iran as falling within the second-tier category of dangerous cyber threats. Intelligence agencies identified two broad categories of cyber threat states: advanced nations like China and Russia, and the less technically capable states like Iran and North Korea, described as still “more aggressive and more unpredictable.” Cybersecurity experts agree that Iranian cyberwarfare actors are technically proficient and well funded and have placed a high priority on developing and implementing both cyber offense and defense activities.

  Since at least 2009, American intelligence has closely tracked Iran’s cyber capabilities. A classified State Department cable made public by the antisecrecy group WikiLeaks revealed Iran’s aggressive efforts to steal U.S. technology and learn about U.S. activities through cyberattacks. “Several Iranian institutions and organizations conduct OSINT [open-source intelligence] against USG [U.S. government] programs,” states a March 31, 2009, cable labeled “secret.” “Most of the Iranian universities
involved in this activity maintain longstanding ties to the IRGC,” the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, the regime’s pivotal security and intelligence force. The programs run by the Iranians likely were used in further cyberattacks. The cable noted that “persistent attempts to collect U.S. information could jeopardize the security of U.S. operations and personnel”—no doubt a bureaucratic understatement of the danger. The cable identified Internet Protocol addresses associated with the Farhang Azma Communication Company, one of the Iranian entities used for directly spying on a number of U.S. Navy unit websites. The company “systematically downloaded over 100 U.S. Navy unit webpages using software ‘Web Downloader/8.1.’ ” Additionally, students and researchers at a number of prominent Iranian universities and companies conducted open-source intelligence collection operations against U.S. information for several years. The targets included academic research, databases, forums, official and draft documents, online publications, reference material, Web logs, and websites.

  The March 2009 cable also disclosed a strong and continued interest in and knowledge of U.S. capabilities and operations from both Iranian institutions and government hackers. The spying included the practice known as social engineering—making phone calls and sending emails seeking information from defense contractors that would provide insights into sensitive U.S. military and defense programs. The targeted information included Pentagon equipment, weapons systems, unmanned vehicle technologies, communications, and intelligence systems. “This information could then be used to develop similar programs for the [government of Iran], shared with third-party entities (e.g., Islamic extremist groups), or exploited through additional Iranian computer network operations activities,” the cable said, adding that the operations by the Iranians had been ongoing since at least January 2007.