In March, the director of national intelligence appeared before the Senate Intelligence Committee to deliver his annual assessment of threats facing the United States. But James Clapper’s testimony left out a very important detail: any discussion of the activities of Iran. With the administration hell-bent on pursuing a nuclear deal with the Tehran, Clapper soft-pedaled Iran’s role in promoting terrorism throughout the Middle East. That dismal performance earned him considerable criticism and, three months later, the DNI finally walked back his comments. But Clapper’s reassessment didn’t come in public but in a private letter sent to the Senate committee obtained by Fox News that discussed the subject that dared not be mentioned at that time. Clapper’s statement on Iranian terror comes only a week after an annual State Department report on international terror that correctly labeled Iran as the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism. Both that report and Clapper’s admission lead rational observers to ask the same question: Why is the U.S. on the verge of not only allowing Iran to become a threshold nuclear power but also about to give it an enormous infusion of cash that will be used in part to subsidize the same terror groups that Clapper and the State Department have labeled as threats to the United States and its allies?
In his letter to Senate Intelligence Committee obtained by Fox News’s Catherin Herrige Clapper admits that terror conduct by Iran and its Hezbollah auxiliaries “directly threatens the interest of the United States and its allies.” Moreover, he also pointed out what has long been common knowledge: Iran and Hezbollah have been instrumental in preventing the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria, which serves as a lynchpin for their efforts to wage war against Israel. He also noted that Iranian-backed militias in Iraq pose a direct threat to other groups in that country as well as to U.S. personnel and interests.
While not conceding that he lied by not mentioning Iran in his testimony, he did own up to the fact that, “A specific reference to the terrorist threat from Iran and Hezbollah – which was not included in any of the drafts of the testimony – would have been appropriate.” That’s true, especially since he now claims that his view of Iran as a threat has been a consensus position within U.S. intelligence for decades.
The Bush administration was widely and often unfairly accused of manipulating intelligence assessments, especially in terms of information that was released to the public. But here we see that it is the Obama administration that has sought, fortunately, in vain to cover up accurate intelligence about Iran in the hope of making Congress more receptive to its efforts to create an entente with the Islamist regime with a weak nuclear deal as its centerpiece.
If, as is almost certainly to be the case, the U.S. strikes a nuclear deal with Iran in the coming month, the result will be the complete collapse of sanctions on Tehran. That will start with the unfreezing of Iranian assets in the U.S. in what will amount to a large cash bonus to the regime that will flood it with cash after being isolated for so long. In response to concerns about Iran’s terror connections, administration apologists claim that specific groups or individuals will remain affected by international sanctions. But what they conveniently omit from their arguments is that money is fungible, especially in an authoritarian regime like that of Iran.
One of the most frustrating aspects of the deal President Obama is pushing is that as loose as the provisions about the nuclear threat may be, it completely ignores other aspects of Iran’s behavior. Contrary to the president’s efforts to segregate terrorism from the discussion about the agreement, Iran’s nuclear program may play a pivotal role in strengthening their terrorist auxiliaries and allies such as Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Houthi rebels in Yemen. By letting Iran keep its infrastructure, the U.S. may eventually acquiesce to a potential nuclear umbrella over terrorist groups. Just as bad, by strengthening Iran’s economy by ending sanctions, the West is indirectly funding the same terror groups that its intelligence services are trying to stop.
This admission by Clapper provides yet another good reason why Congress can and must refuse to ratify any agreement that fails to address the issue of Iran’s role as a state sponsor of terror. Just as the details of the pact fall short of Obama’s own criteria for a good deal, one that doesn’t even mention terrorism should be dead on arrival on Capitol Hill.
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