Iran is threatening American lives on U.S. soil. We must take bolder steps to protect them | Opinion
Iran is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of American military personnel and civilians. Recently, Tehran has grown bolder, threatening Americans on U.S. soil in operations tantamount to acts of war.
The lackluster response from Washington is putting lives at risk, signaling that plotting to kidnap or kill Americans is a low-risk, high-reward proposition. The United States urgently needs to enhance deterrence and create a protective structure for U.S. citizens targeted by nation-states if a conflict is to be averted.
During the past few years, operatives affiliated with the Iranian security services have been aggressively targeting for potential assassination former government officials, including two former U.S. national security advisors, a former secretary of state, a former secretary of defense and others. These episodes could involve murder-for-hire schemes, where the Iranian system contracts out its brazen attacks to gangs, drug cartels, and other dangerous organizations in the West to mask its involvement.
Such was the case for Masih Alinejad — a New Yorker and one of the world’s leading critics of the Islamic Republic. To silence her, agents from Tehran hired private investigators who unwittingly surveilled her residence in Brooklyn. Unbeknownst to them, they were working for Iranian intelligence.
The conspirators also researched services offering military-style speedboats for a maritime rendition of Alinejad from New York City to Venezuela. The following year, a man with a loaded assault rifle was arrested outside her home. Further investigation implicated an Eastern European criminal syndicate based in Iran. Just last month, the Czech Republic announced its decision to extradite one of those who was indicted in Alinejad’s case to the United States.
Even more concerning is the lack of specialized governmental infrastructure to guard U.S. citizens under threat from foreign powers for exercising their freedom of speech. Despite U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan promising last year that, “The United States of America will protect and defend its citizens,” not all Americans are being protected and defended. A few years ago, the FBI alerted Iranian-American author Roya Hakakian that Tehran wanted to harm her. But as Hakakian noted, “without more specific intelligence, they could not offer any protection.” As she later recounted, “To make our home terrorist-proof . . . would cost nearly as much as the house itself.”
When called upon, law enforcement’s response to Iranian threats has been heroic, but the policy response has been weak and unimaginative. When a plot against Americans is foiled, the United States is content to file an indictment, mostly against individuals who will never set foot in the country; issue a strongly worded press statement from a senior U.S. official warning of consequences; and announce piecemeal sanctions on culprits who have no U.S. assets.
This happened in June when the United States levied sanctions on officers from the Iranian armed forces involved in these schemes, necessary but not sufficient. The result is a more dangerous America for anyone on the Islamic Republic’s radar.
The United States used to be bolder; it deterred our enemies. President Bill Clinton launched a cruise-missile strike against Iraqi intelligence headquarters after the United States foiled an assassination attempt targeting former President George H.W. Bush in Kuwait in 1993.
Americans should not be left alone to face serious and sophisticated state actors, or bear the cost of protection on their own. We must have a bipartisan strategy of deterrence. Iran should feel real consequences from the continued planning of such attacks. Merely foiling them — as important as it is to do so — is not a strategy.
Bipartisan legislation has been recently introduced in the U.S. Senate that would require the secretary of State and federal departments to report to Congress on their strategy to address transnational repression; direct training for U.S. personnel; and establish a dedicated tip line. These would be good first steps, but the bill would still leave Americans to fend for themselves against enemy states.
The Biden administration and Congress must authorize and fund federal departments through executive order and legislation to enable a wider net of protection for all Americans. The FBI is an investigative agency at its core, and there is a gap in authorities, which results in a lack of a capability to protect all U.S. citizens regardless of whether they are former U.S. officials. Currently, there is no such agency tasked with that mission, and Americans should not have to enlist in a witness-protection program for safety. This would accomplish the Islamic Republic’s goal of muzzling them and undermine our constitutional rights of freedom of the press and speech.
Additionally, Washington should criminalize transnational repression itself. Although discrete acts that make up the threat are subject to criminal penalties, there is no specific federal crime for transnational repression.
Only one country is systematically targeting Americans in this manner — Iran. Washington needs to get tough on pariah states like the Islamic Republic. It is the best way to avert a war. Time is running out to save lives.
Jeb Bush was the 43rd governor of Florida. He is an advisory board member of United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI). Mark D. Wallace is the CEO of UANI and former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations for management and reform.
