*According to the West Point Center for Combatting Terrorism: “Iran sees terrorism as an extension of foreign policy…. The primary pathways available to Iran in the US include deploying Iranian agents, criminal surrogates, terrorist proxies, or actively seeking to inspire lone offenders to carry out attacks within the homeland…. Iran and its proxies have spent years investing in a ‘homeland option’ here in the United States. In just the past five years, US authorities have disrupted at least 17 Iranian plots in the homeland…. In its 2025 Threat Assessment, the Director of National Intelligence assessed that Iran “will continue to directly threaten US persons globally and remains committed to its decade-long effort to develop surrogate networks inside the United States…. The Department of Homeland Security’s 2025 Threat Assessment [and the FBI] concurred, reporting ‘we expect Iran to remain the primary sponsor of terrorism and continue its efforts to advance plots against individuals – including current and former US officials – in the US.’ Such plots have been on the rise in recent years…. In early 2024…, a network of [Iranian] individuals targeted Iranian dissidents and opposition activists [in the US] for assassination at the direction of the Iranian regime…. According to the FBI, Hezbollah has maintained a presence in the US since at least 1987.”
*Since the 1979 toppling of the pro-US Shah of Iran, and irrespective of its financial and military constraints, the Ayatollah regime has demonstrated that its 1,400-year-old fanatical ideology – which is underscored in the 1979 Constitution, the school curriculum, Friday mosque sermons and official media – transcends the Western concept of “Money Talks.” In defiance of 47 years of Western negotiation attempts and maximum pressure economic sanctions, the Ayatollah regime has not moderated its policy, is still determined to topple all “apostate and treacherous” Sunni Arab regimes (e.g., Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Egypt and Morocco), and bring to submission the “infidel” West, especially “The Great American Satan” and its vanguard in the Middle East, Israel.
*Since 1979, and increasingly in recent years, Iran’s Ayatollah regime – in collaboration with Hezbollah – has posed a clear and present threat to the US homeland, in addition to its intense efforts to topple every pro-US Sunni Arab regime, as well as serving as a leading global epicenter of (civil) wars, terrorism, drug trafficking and the proliferation of advanced military systems in the Middle East, Africa and Latin America, the US’ backyard and soft underbelly.
*Iran’s security organs (IRGC/Qods Force) and Iran-controlled Hezbollah’s global arm, Unit 910 – which is Iran’s expeditionary and clandestine arm – have recruited and deployed terror operatives throughout (terrorist training camps in) Latin America and inside the US for surveillance and contingency attack roles. Iran’s security apparatus has used Unit 910 to build and position sleeper operatives in the US, expecting them to be activated whenever that suits the Ayatollah regime.
*The anti-US terror collaboration between Iran’s Ayatollah regime and Hezbollah – which serves as conduit for Iranian money laundering and support of additional terror organizations – was demonstrated in the 1983 car-bombing of the US Embassy and Marines Headquarters in Beirut (258 Americans killed), as well as the 1998 car-bombing of the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania (212 killed among them were 56 Americans).
*The Iran–Russia–China anti-US terror alignment has gained momentum on US soil, according to the FBI’s, the Homeland Security Department’s and the Director of Intelligence’s 2025 Threat Assessment. Moreover, since 1979, the Ayatollah’s IRGC-Qods Force has collaborated with Hezbollah in expanding their US network of “sleeper cells.”
*Russia and China have deepened cooperation with Iran, establishing a Russia–Iran–China axis that aims at eroding the US’ global strategic posture, focusing mainly on air defenses, ballistic (conventional and supersonic) missiles, military nuclear, predator drones, sanctions circumvention and anti-US terrorism, globally and on US soil.
*The achievement of the US goal of preventing, minimizing and ending wars is preconditioned upon avoiding the critical mistakes of 47 years of negotiations with – and sanctioning of – the Ayatollah regime, which have bolstered its anti-US capabilities. Advancing this US goal mandates the uprooting of the leading epicenter of wars, terrorism, drug trafficking and money laundering – a regime change in Iran, as was orchestrated by the US – without ground troops – in 1953 (restoring the Shah) and in 1978/79 (betraying the Shah and paving the road to the Ayatollah regime).
This article was published at The Ettinger Report
The views expressed in guest columns are not necessarily the views or positions of the CCNS or its members.
