The West Grapples with the Iran Challenge

The Jewish Home | JUNE 23, 2022 The West Grapples with the Iran Challenge

By Shammai SiSkind

One morning in mid-April, in the north-western province of Ashnaabad Iran, Mansour Rasouli heard a knock on his door.

It was strange to have guests at this hour, but he thought nothing suspicious of these early morning visitors.

Mansour called out to inquire who was there, and the men outside responded in the local Turkic dialect. Mansour opened the door.

Before he could get the words “good morning” out of his mouth, the men had violently grabbed him, placed a black cloth bag over his head, and threw him into their nondescript vehicle waiting outside. As the car drove away, one of the attackers began speaking.

“Mr. Rasouli,” he said in flawless Farsi, “we have some questions for you.”

The Summer of Assassinations

While the details of this incident are still in dispute (some even claim the nabbing took place in Europe and not in Iran), what is known for certain is that Mansour Rasouli was kidnapped by Israeli agents and interrogated around the first or second week of April. To confirm this fact, the Israeli government allowed actual footage of Rasouli to be aired on public news channels.

In the released footage, the Iranian citizen of Kurdish origin can be clearly seen sitting in the back seat of a car. The men filming him ask his name and where he’s from. They then ask him what he was hired to do for the Iranian government. In a rather emotionless voice, Rasouli answers he was charged with “assassinating” three high-profile Israeli citizens in Turkey in cooperation with the regime’s Quds Force, the paramilitary organization charged with carrying out the Ayatollah’s clandestine missions outside Iran’s borders.

“I made a mistake,” Mansour pleadingly adds at the end of the interrogation. “From here on out, I won’t take any move regarding this, I swear.” Indeed, many regrets befall a man when tied up in the back of a truck.

What is so interesting about the Rasouli incident is that it was far from a stand-alone operation. Indeed, Rasouli was seemingly just the first milestone in a complex Mossad effort to undo an Iranian plot of targeting Israelis abroad. This Israeli operation is but one piece of an all-new, ramped-up effort in clamping down on Iranian networks in the region.

Despite his inconsequential demeanor, Rasouli was not the quaint Kurdish farmer he purported to be. In fact, Mansour was a member of Unit 840, an elite section of the Quds Force tasked with planning and executing overseas operations against Western targets – basically, Tehran’s specialized assassins. The London-based Iran International, an anti-regime Persian language newspaper, confirmed all of this in an expose shortly after the Israeli tape of Rasouli was released.

According to the outlet, Rasouli was likely not an actual hitman himself but was certainly involved in big-picture planning supporting such operations. He laundered substantial amounts of money through a front company called Dalamper, an import-export service that Rasouli also uses for his own legitimate business needs. The money was funneled from the Iranian government, funneled through the labyrinth of Dalamper’s commercial activities, and then used to secure logistical needs of Iranian agents – travel, accommodations, etc. The information obtained from Rasouli was used to uncover the details of what his colleagues were up to in Istanbul.

Luckily, this information was able to be put to good use – and not a minute too soon. Earlier this month, Israeli public broadcaster Kan radio reported that security officials foiled an Iranian attack targeting Israelis in Turkey. Israeli officials coordinated with their Turkish security counterparts to thwart the attack planned by an “Iranian network” in Turkey. According to Israeli news reports, the Israeli couple being targeted was allegedly “minutes” away from being attacked by an Iranian hit squad when they were contacted by a senior official, warning them of the danger. They were met by a caravan of some ten security vehicles which rushed them to the airport where they were flown back to Israel.

Over the past week, it was revealed that additional attacks have been attempted targeting Israeli nationals in the country, all of which have been thwarted. Recently, Foreign Minister Yair Lapid posted an unprecedented warning advising all Israelis to leave Turkey immediately.

“Following developments in Turkey in recent weeks and after a series of Iranian terror attack attempts against Israeli tourists in Istanbul, we call on Israelis: Do not fly to Istanbul,” Lapid tweeted on his official account, adding that there are ongoing cooperative efforts with Turkish authorities and “we hope and believe that this warning will not be long-term.”

The Turkish incidents, which have been widely covered by Middle Easter media, make up just one fragment of a recent escalation in the years-long shadow war between Iran and Israel.

The development is closely connected to the diplomatic process between the West and Tehran as well as Iran’s ongoing expansionist efforts in the region and their continued pursuit of nuclear weapons capabilities.

There are many moving parts to this situation. Examining each one by one sheds light on just how interlinked they are.

Bold Even for the Mossad

Anyone paying even minimal attention to the news over the past two months has heard of the suspicious events taking place in Iran.

On May 22, Revolutionary Guard Corps Colonel Hassan Sayyad Khodaei was killed with five gunshots as he returned home near Mojahedin-e-Islam Street in central Tehran. According to reports, gunmen riding on motorcycles opened fire on the senior officer outside his home, killing him in his car.

This was not the first incident in which an Iranian official was gunned down in broad daylight. Some may remember the similar killing of Iranian scientist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh who was widely identified by Western intelligence agencies as the mastermind of the country’s nuclear program.

Khodaei was a senior commander in the Quds Force. Among other things, Khodaei was in charge of developing strategies for – you guessed it – eliminating Western targets abroad.

Israel’s stealthy assassins have not only targeted IRGC officials. Shortly after the killing of Khodaei, Iranian state media reported the death of a nuclear engineer at the Parchin research facility located some 30 kilometers southeast of Tehran. Parchin is one of the most secure facilities within Iran’s nuclear program. It has previously been closed for entry even to inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The complex has been the site of other suspicious incidents, including several unexplained fires spanning the past fifteen years. State media reports on the engineer’s death indicated he died in an explosion not related to any of the site’s equipment or machinery.

Last but not least are reports of the alleged poisoning of two scientists both under the employment of Iran’s security establishment. According to a recent New York Times article, Ayoub Entezari and Kamran Aghamolaei both died around the same time of mysterious illnesses in different locations in Iran. Entezari was an aeronautical engineer who worked for a military research center. Aghamolaei was a geologist with a senior position at the Natanz nuclear facility. According to reports, the two scientists, both young and healthy, fell ill at around the same time in early June. Initially, both exhibited classic symptoms of food poisoning, and their doctors were far from concerned. But by the 13th of the month, they were both dead, having succumbed to their sicknesses only days apart.

The New York Times as well as other outlets covering this string of suspicious deaths have all come to the same conclusion: There is no way of knowing for sure who is behind these alleged killings. At the same time, the deaths that are being reported are likely only the tip of the iceberg, with other similar incidents being intentionally suppressed by state censorship.

What is the meaning behind this sudden and stark escalation on the part of Israel?

A Diplomatic Window

Since U.S. President Joe Biden entered office, one of the few things he has been consistent on has been his efforts to revive the Iran nuclear deal. He ran his election on the promise of doing this. He and his team have been hard at work for over a year trying to make headway on that promise. Over many months, long days of negotiations have taken place between U.S. and Iranian representatives in Vienna, the city in which Biden’s old boss Barack Obama successfully mediated the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the 2015 deal that was eventually nixed by Donald Trump.

Biden’s obsession with making a deal with Iran is quite bizarre, indeed. Iran is and has been a regime openly hostile to the United States and the West, in general, for over forty years. The Ayatollahs have invested untold resources in killing Americans in Iraq and Syria as well as waging a years-long proxy war against America’s Gulf allies. Is it the typical inability of politicians to admit a mistake and re-route? Is it a naive belief that the only way to stave off escalated conflict is to arrive at a deal? Perhaps a bit of both? It is truly difficult to comprehend, and we may never know for sure.

Talks in Vienna have basically been stalled What we do know is that the resolve of even the true believers of team Biden has been tested in recent months. The first crack in the administration’s commitment to their utopian Persian peace plan came in early March. It was then that the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published a bombshell report on the vast Iranian con-

The elite that occupies the halls of spiracy to create a worldwide, clandestine financial network with the goal of circumventing U.S. sanctions. According to official documents and intelligence reports the U.S. State Department and the obtained by WSJ, over the past several years, Tehran has succeeded in establishing a shadow banking and finance system to handle tens of billions of dollars in

EU Foreign Affairs Council may be annual trade banned under US.-.led restrictions. Ac cording to evidence authenticated by Western diplo mats and intelligence officials, Iran built a wide array unhinged from reality, but one thing of proxy companies outside of Iran’s borders in order to hide their connection to the regime, a technique long known to be employed by the Ayatollahs for orchestratthey tend to take notice of is when ing illicit finance. Through these front corporations, Iran was slowly able to reconstruct its foreign trade and export goods – including Iranian oil. According people start messing with their banks. to the WSJ article, tens of billions in commerce were conducted through these false entities over the last twoyear period. Because the connection to the regime was effectively concealed, these earnings were able to be funneled through foreign banks back into the hands of the Iranian government. This exceptional piece of investigative journalism was important not just because it laid bare the duplicitous nature of the Iranian government, but because it exposed the tremendous damage being inflicted by the Ayatollahs upon many aspects of the global commercial system, including major financial institutions around the world. The WSJ report should have been on the front page of every major Western newspaper. But alas, like many other incidents of Iranian treachery, it was kept as quiet as possible in order to ensure that the Western diplomats still engaged in dialogue with Iran wouldn’t appear too incompetent. Kept quiet, perhaps, but certainly not unnoticed. The elite that occupies the halls of the U.S. State De-

partment and the EU Foreign Affairs Council may be unhinged from reality, but one thing they tend to take notice of is when people start messing with their banks.

It was around the time of the WSJ release that the tone of Western negotiators in Vienna began to shift. Even France’s Emmanuel Macron, the only leader committed to Iran reconciliation as much as Biden, began calling out the Iranian delegation for their “unrealistic” demands. The evidence of commercial fraud on a global scale coupled with the Iranian team flip-flopping on their positions made many Western diplomats begin to suspect that the entirety of the talks was a charade, a mere means for Iran to stall while it continued ramping up its nuclear efforts.

These fears were only enforced by a recent IAEA report released on May 31 rebuking Iran for withholding key information regarding its nuclear facilities. IAEA officials wrote that the organization still had questions that were “not clarified” regarding undeclared nuclear material previously found at three sites in Marivan, Varamin, and Turquzabad. Why were these initial “clarifications” requested in the first place? Well, as it turns out, it all goes back to the nuclear archive heist Israel pulled off back in 2018.

In April of that year, then-Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu showcased this spectacular trove of information which demonstrated beyond any shadow of a doubt that Iran was pursuing nuclear weapon capabilities while fabricating elaborate cover stories to conceal that fact.

At the time, all efforts were made by the international community to pretend that these revelations were inconsequential – fully acknowledging terabytes of incriminating information would cause irreparable damage to the collective cause of achieving “peace” with Tehran. But privately, global leaders were actually a bit concerned. Was there actually something to Netanyahu’s nonstop ranting about the Ayatollah’s nuclear ambitions? And so, ever so quietly, IAEA made some cordial visits to a few Iranian facilities in early 2019. Lo and behold, tests on soil samples from Marivan, Varamin, and Turquzabad, revealed radioactive residue. There are not, nor have there ever been, any declared nuclear facilities in any of these three locations. In a follow-up from the May 31 report, IAEA director-general Rafael Mariano Grossi said Iran was in the process of removing dozens of surveillance cameras from nuclear sites around the country.

Following these disturbing reports, the UK’s Telegraph reached out to Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. Bennett emphasized how all the recent findings of the IAEA support what Israel has been saying for years. “Iran’s nuclear program won’t stop until it’s stopped,” said Bennett to interviewers. “The world must take a firm stance and tell the Islamic regime in Iran: no nukes, no sanctions.”

Bibi and Bennett have been exposing Iran’s treachery mascus airport (which is today little more than a hub for delivering Iranian weapons and equipment), while the rest of the world quietly nods in approvement.

If the strategy of the West doesn’t shift from talking to action, there could be grave consequences.

The wave of damning evidence against Iran has even forced the hand of team Biden. At the same time as the IAEA reports were being made public, the White House made its final decision regarding Iran’s demand that the IRGC be removed from Washington’s list of terror organizations as a precondition for further talks. Shockingly, Biden refused to acquiesce. The IRGC would remain classified as an international terrorist organization – keeping with the decision of the last administration. Biden’s decision effectively killed the Vienna talks, at least in their current iteration. This is the window that Israel has seized to ramp up its efforts against Iran. With the country and its Ayatollahs completely isolated, Israel could begin to increase its attacks on Iran – from assassinating Iranian scienIran's foreign minister met with the head of the IAEA in Tehran in March tists, to bombing the Da-

Where from Here?

From one perspective, one might see these developments as beneficials for Israel’s position.

Israel’s claims on Iran have been vindicated – despite the reluctance of many to face the music. Its freedom to target Iran has been expanded. Ties with countries that share a mutual concern over Iran’s malign activities (Turkey and Saudi Arabia, for example) have improved substantially.

But from a different angle, recent events point to a serious deterioration in the Iran conflict.

The elephant in the room has been recognized. Iran has been manipulating the situation for years in order to advance its nuclear program. All the secret (and now, not-so-secret) activities Iran has been conducting in its enrichment centers have brought it closer and closer to achieving nuclear capabilities. Simultaneously, Tehran has been partnering with additional adversaries of the West, especially China, to create for itself alternative avenues of economic and infrastructural growth. No doubt the money-laundering network Iran painstakingly built for itself over the past three years – much of which is still operational – has also contributed to Iran’s ability to snub its nose at U.S. demands.

What this means practically is this: the world is at an important junction in the Iran saga. The West can either change course and be decisively aggressive against Iran, or it will passively decide to grant Iran whatever course of action it desires.

As Prime Minister Bennett put it in an open speech (given in English) at the end of last month, it doesn’t matter how many times over the past ten years Iran has been caught red-handed. The Ayatollahs have persistently progressed in their uranium enrichment. If the strategy of the West doesn’t shift from talking to action, there could be grave consequences.

“Iran lied to the world. Iran is lying now,” said Bennett. “The world must ensure Iran does not get away scot-free.”