Spycraft will decide Iran’s fate

Excerpt

After four months of war, Israel still has targets to hit. The latest IDF raids, in this increasingly fictional ceasefire, smashed Iranian missile-defense systems and a petrochemical plant in the south of the country. Yet looming behind these physical symbols of the Islamic Republic are human targets too. Israeli officials give the impression that they could still kill senior IRGC leaders and even Mojtaba Khamenei, the new supreme leader. If true, it’s an unrivaled ongoing intelligence operation.  

Demands on American and Israeli intelligence will increase regardless of whether the war stays cold or heats up once more. Donald Trump obviously doesn’t want to fight the battle to open the Strait of Hormuz. This means that Tehran, sensing victory, will probably be emboldened elsewhere, perhaps even trying to reactivate terrorist operations against American and Israeli targets. Iranian terrorist operations, which have ebbed and flowed through the years, haven’t been well run for some time. Some recent assassination attempts against Iranian expatriates have been awkwardly if not incompetently planned and executed. But when there is a will, ways improve. 

Reuel Marc Gerecht is a Resident Scholar at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and a former Iranian-targets officer in the Central Intelligence Agency.