U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE

WASHINGTON : 

For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Publishing Office

Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800

Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001

93–283PDF 2015

STATE SPONSOR OF TERROR:

THE GLOBAL THREAT OF IRAN

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM, 

NONPROLIFERATION, AND TRADE

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS

FIRST SESSION

FEBRUARY 11, 2015

Serial No. 114–9

Printed for the use of the Committee on Foreign Affairs

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.foreignaffairs.house.gov/ or

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/

(II)

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS 

EDWARD R. ROYCE, California, Chairman 

CHRISTOPHER H. SMITH, New Jersey 

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

STEVE CHABOT, Ohio 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

TED POE, Texas 

MATT SALMON, Arizona 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California 

TOM MARINO, Pennsylvania 

JEFF DUNCAN, South Carolina 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

PAUL COOK, California 

RANDY K. WEBER SR., Texas 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

RON DESANTIS, Florida 

MARK MEADOWS, North Carolina 

TED S. YOHO, Florida 

CURT CLAWSON, Florida 

SCOTT DESJARLAIS, Tennessee 

REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin 

DAVID A. TROTT, Michigan 

LEE M. ZELDIN, New York 

TOM EMMER, Minnesota 

ELIOT L. ENGEL, New York 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

GREGORY W. MEEKS, New York 

ALBIO SIRES, New Jersey 

GERALD E. CONNOLLY, Virginia 

THEODORE E. DEUTCH, Florida 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

KAREN BASS, California 

WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts 

DAVID CICILLINE, Rhode Island 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

AMI BERA, California 

ALAN S. LOWENTHAL, California 

GRACE MENG, New York 

LOIS FRANKEL, Florida 

TULSI GABBARD, Hawaii 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas 

ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois 

BRENDAN F. BOYLE, Pennsylvania

AMY PORTER, Chief of Staff THOMAS SHEEHY, Staff Director

JASON STEINBAUM, Democratic Staff Director 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM, NONPROLIFERATION, AND TRADE

TED POE, Texas, Chairman 

JOE WILSON, South Carolina 

DARRELL E. ISSA, California 

PAUL COOK, California 

SCOTT PERRY, Pennsylvania 

REID J. RIBBLE, Wisconsin 

LEE M. ZELDIN, New York 

WILLIAM KEATING, Massachusetts 

BRAD SHERMAN, California 

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York 

JOAQUIN CASTRO, Texas 

ROBIN L. KELLY, Illinois 

(III)

C O N T E N T S 

Page

WITNESSES 

Frederick W. Kagan, Ph.D., Christopher DeMuth chair and director, Critical 

Threats Project, American Enterprise Institute ................................................ 6

Mr. Ilan I. Berman, vice president, American Foreign Policy Council ............... 12

Mr. Tony Badran, research fellow, Foundation for Defense of Democracies ...... 23

Daniel L. Byman, Ph.D., professor, Security Studies Program, Edmund A. 

Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University ................................ 34

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING 

Frederick W. Kagan, Ph.D.: Prepared statement ................................................. 8

Mr. Ilan I. Berman: Prepared statement ............................................................... 14

Mr. Tony Badran: Prepared statement .................................................................. 25

Daniel L. Byman, Ph.D.: Prepared statement ....................................................... 36

APPENDIX 

Hearing notice .......................................................................................................... 60

Hearing minutes ...................................................................................................... 61

(1)

STATE SPONSOR OF TERROR:

THE GLOBAL THREAT OF IRAN 

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2015

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON TERRORISM, NONPROLIFERATION, AND TRADE,

COMMITTEE ON FOREIGN AFFAIRS,

Washington, DC. 

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 2 o’clock p.m., in 

room 2172, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Ted Poe (chairman of the subcommittee) presiding. 

Mr. POE. The subcommittee will come to order. 

Without objection, all members may have 5 days to submit statements, objections, questions, and extraneous materials for the 

record, subject to the length limitation in the rules. 

The Iranians are the largest state sponsor of terror in the whole 

world. Iranian proxy groups like Hezbollah resource and execute 

attacks around the world. Iranian IRGC and Quds Force troops 

personally support and engineer attacks on a global scale. These 

aren’t rogue elements; these attacks are directed by the Iranian regime. 

This is the very same regime we are in good-faith negotiations 

with to curb their nuclear ambitions. In my opinion, it is dreaming 

to believe Iran would uphold any eventual agreement. If sanctions 

are ultimately lifted through the ongoing negotiations, they should 

only be sanctions that have to do with Iran’s nuclear program. 

Sanctions put in place for its terrorist activity, although minimal, 

in my opinion should never be lifted. 

Iranian-backed terror plots are a threat to everyone. In 2011, the 

Iranians plotted to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador to the 

United States in Washington, DC. That plot, fortunately, was uncovered and stopped before it could be carried out. 

Recently, the suspicious death of Argentinian prosecutor Alberto 

Nisman has raised eyebrows. Nisman was found dead 1 day before 

he was about to reveal details of Iran’s involvement in the 1994 

bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires that killed 

85 people—ironic timing, it seems. Given Iran’s previous behavior 

abroad, I believe Nisman’s death should be thoroughly investigated 

to see if the Iranians were involved in that episode. 

In Yemen, would-be rebels overthrew the government with the 

support of—guess who?—the regime in Tehran. Iran has long supported Houthis against Yemen’s Sunni tribes. This illegal act also 

complicates U.S. counterterrorism efforts against AQAP. 

2

In Iraq, Iran is reenergizing Shia death squads to prop up the 

government in Baghdad. In fact, these Shia militias that Iran supports, trains, and resources are much more capable than Iraq’s own 

army. There are reports that Iraqi Army units are being led by 

these Shia militia commanders, controlled by Iran. Even though 

Malaki is gone, the new Iraqi Prime Minister, al-Abadi, doesn’t 

seem to be trying to distance himself from Iranian control. 

And Iranian hands are also in the mischief—they have created 

mischief all over the attacks and murders of freedom fighters in 

Camp Liberty and Camp Ashraf. And no one has ever been held 

accountable for these homicides that have taken place over the last 

several years against these Iranian dissidents in Iraq. 

The lack of inclusive government and Iran’s control of the security apparatus does not bode well for the push to defeat ISIL or 

bring the moderate Sunni tribes into the fold. 

In neighboring Syria, Iran is even stronger. Iran virtually controls the Assad regime and helps the murderous dictator cling to 

power every day. Many believe that if it weren’t for Iran, Assad 

would already have been overthrown. 

Iran’s power play in the region is paying dividends at the expense of moderate Sunni countries in the region. But Iran’s main 

target is still Israel and Israeli interests around the world. In the 

last 3 years alone, Iran has killed or tried to kill Israelis, not in 

Israel but in Bulgaria, India, Thailand, and Georgia, and the list 

goes on and on. It is truly a worldwide assault on Israel. 

Iran must be held accountable for its state sponsorship of acts of 

terror. It should not be given a pass just because it is talking to 

us about a different issue, its increased nuclear weapon program. 

All of these activities are part of Iran’s plan to expand its influence 

and its stature and its terror around the globe. 

And now I will recognize the ranking member, Mr. Keating from 

Massachusetts, for his opening statement. 

Mr. KEATING. Thank you, Chairman Poe. 

And I would also like to thank our witnesses for being here 

today. 

For over the past 30 years, Iran’s stance toward the United 

States has been antagonistic, to say the least. Despite our renewal 

of direct talks with Iran, the Iranian regime must understand that, 

regardless of any progress made on the nuclear issue, the United 

States and our allies will not turn a blind eye to Iran’s established 

and potentially growing role as a state sponsor of international terrorism. 

Working mostly through the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, 

Quds Force, and its protege, Hezbollah, Iran has continually targeted American citizens and our allies in every corner of the globe. 

According to the latest State Department country reports on terrorism, Hezbollah, backed by millions of dollars in Iranian funding, 

has significantly increased its global terrorist activities since 2012. 

The report states that the United States has seen a resurgence of 

activity by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Quds, the 

Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security, and Tehran’s ally 

Hezbollah. 

On January 23, 2013, the Yemeni Coast Guard interdicted an 

Iranian dhow carrying weapons and explosives likely destined for 

3

Houthi rebels. On February 5, 2013, the Bulgarian Government 

publicly implicated Hezbollah in July 2012 at the Burgas bombing 

that killed 5 Israelis and 1 Bulgarian citizen and injured 32 others. 

On March 21, 2013, a Cyprus court found that a Hezbollah operative was guilty of charges stemming from his surveillance activities of Israeli tourist targets in 2012. On September 18th, Thailand 

convicted Atris Hussein, a Hezbollah operative detained by Thai 

authorities on January 2012. 

And on December 30, 2013, a Bahraini Coast Guard interdicted 

a speedboat attempting to smuggle arms and Iranian explosives, 

likely destined for armed Shia opposition groups in Bahrain. During an interrogation, the suspects admitted to receiving paramilitary training in Iran. 

In addition, we have seen numerous other examples of Iran’s direct involvement in or support for terrorist activities, including the 

1983 Marine barracks bombing in Lebanon, the 1994 bombing of 

the AMIA Jewish center in Argentina, the 1996 Khobar Towers 

bombing in Saudi Arabia, and thwarted terrorist plots in Cyprus, 

Georgia, Kenya, Thailand, and even right here in Washington, DC, 

against the Saudi Arabian Ambassador that the chair mentioned. 

For the past 3 years, Hezbollah and Quds have funneled money, 

fighters, and weapons into Syria. Certain senior Quds Force personnel, including General Hassan Shateri, have even died in that 

struggle. 

So, in conclusion, with attention focused on potential diplomatic 

solutions to the Iranian nuclear crisis, it is important to remind the 

world that we have not and will not ignore Iran’s destabilizing actions around the globe and its continued support to groups who 

continue to support or plan attacks against American citizens and 

interests as well as against our allies. 

I look to our witnesses today to provide us with more of a complete picture of Iran’s activities, what drives its sustained support 

for international terrorism, and what options the United States has 

to curtail Iran’s support for these groups, particularly through nuclear talks. 

With that, I yield back. And thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

Mr. POE. I thank the gentleman. 

The Chair will now recognize the gentleman from California, Mr. 

Issa, for an opening statement. 

Mr. ISSA. Thank you, Chairman. 

Today’s hearing is important, but it is not new. We will say a 

great many things, and very few of them will be new. 

Certainly, questions about Armenia’s banking relationship with 

Iran, certainly authorized, pushed, prodded, and cajoled by Russia, 

is new and concerning when we are looking to Russia, in theory, 

as an honest broker to help—a destabilizing effect—be thwarted of 

their nuclear ambitions. But, of course, Russia’s involvement 

makes it very clear that, in fact, all they are really doing is guaranteeing a slow march toward a nuclear Iran. 

Sanctions are the subject, Iran is the subject, but we would be 

remiss if we didn’t do two things: Recognize that, all the way back 

in the early 1980s, the late President Ronald Reagan referred to an 

evil empire, at that time the Soviet Union. They were evil because 

4

of their participation around the world in fomenting the kinds of 

things that Iran has been fomenting since 1979. 

Today, Iran and Russia are partners more than ever before in, 

in fact, destabilizing activities. As both the chairman and ranking 

member mentioned, rightfully so, Syria only exists, Hezbollah only 

exists, Hamas is only a dangerous force because of the direct support from Iran, either directly in money or through its puppet, 

Syria. 

To put it in perspective, today we will talk about Iran as though 

there is some doubt as to what they might do. But, in fact, I was 

a 26-year-old Army lieutenant in 1979. I am now a 61-year-old 

Congressman saying, does it take more than 36 years of direct and 

constant involvement in terrorism, destabilizing countries around 

the world, and being involved time and time again in assassinations, kidnaps, and murders? 

My point today and, Mr. Chairman, I think what this hearing 

will show is that Einstein would clearly call it insanity after 36 

years of consistently getting the same result from approaches to 

Iran to believe that this round of negotiations by the administration will yield anything other than what we have had for 36 years 

since the Ayatollah Khomeini and his gang took over Iran. 

And, with that, Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for the opportunity to make a short opening statement. I look forward to 

questions, particularly questions on Russia’s involvement through 

Armenia in the backdoor circumvention of the sanctions as they are 

in place today. 

And I yield back. 

Mr. POE. The Chair will now recognize another gentleman from 

California, Mr. Sherman, for his opening statement. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Thank you. 

There are three forces in the Middle East, or constellation of 

forces. You have the forces of reason. You have Sunni extremists, 

typified by Al Qaeda and ISIS. And, finally, and perhaps deserving 

most of our attention, is the Shiite alliance, quarterbacked by Iran 

and including Hezbollah, including much of the Baghdad government and certainly the Shiite militias that are run by the Iranians, 

and, finally, Assad. 

We will meet as a full committee in this room tomorrow to discuss ISIS. And everybody is talking about ISIS, and they have videos of evil to show that they are on the cutting edge of unspeakable 

crimes. But the fact is that the Shiite alliance headed by Iran is 

far more deadly than ISIS, just in Syria, having killed perhaps as 

many as 200,000 people, and certainly they have killed more Americans, starting with the Marine barracks in Beirut in—I believe it 

was 1983. 

The Shiite alliance is more dangerous than ISIS. ISIS aspires, 

may have some capacities as of yet unproven, to carry out directed 

attacks in the West. As my colleagues in their opening statements 

have detailed, Iran and its allies have killed people on virtually 

every continent, save Antarctica. 

Now, it is interesting; ISIS, I think, wants to be bombed by the 

United States. You would have to say they were asking for it, and 

we have obliged. Assad clearly did not want to be bombed, and the 

other elements of the Shiite alliance do not want to be bombed by 

5

the United States. We have obliged. And before we wage more intense war on ISIS, we have to ask who will fill that space and are 

we not weakening an enemy of the Shiite alliance without noting 

that that alliance is a greater threat to us than ISIS. 

Finally, though, I would agree that talking to the Iranians is not 

a bad thing as long as we do not check our skepticism at the door. 

Ronald Reagan negotiated with the entity he described as an evil 

empire, and we certainly did business even with Stalin. So talking 

is fine. You don’t make peace with your friends; you make peace 

with your enemies. But let’s not delude ourselves. Iran wants nuclear weapons. 

I yield back. 

Mr. POE. I thank the gentleman. 

The Chair will now recognize the gentleman from Pennsylvania, 

Mr. Perry, for his opening statement. 

Mr. PERRY. Thanks, Mr. Chairman. 

Since 1979, Iran has been responsible for countless terrorist plots 

directly through regime agents or indirectly through proxies like 

Hamas and Hezbollah. The IRGC is believed to have had a direct 

role in the 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks and French 

military barracks in Beirut, Lebanon, which killed 299 American 

and French soldiers. After the attacks of September 11, 2001, the 

Iranian regime assisted the Taliban, Al Qaeda, and radical Shiite 

militias battling U.S. and allied soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. 

In 2011, the U.S. Government announced it foiled an Iranian terrorist plot to work with Mexican drug cartel members to assassinate the Saudi Ambassador to the United States by bombing a 

Washington, DC, restaurant he frequented. And, in 2012, the U.S. 

State Department reported a clear resurgence in Iranian terrorist 

activities and that Hezbollah’s terrorist activities had reached a 

tempo unseen since the 1990s. 

This is nothing new, and it is imperative that we keep these 

facts, ladies and gentlemen—these facts—in mind during the ongoing nuclear negotiations with the Iranian regime. 

And I yield back. 

Mr. POE. The gentleman yields back his time. 

The Chair will now introduce all four of our witnesses. And we 

will see how far we can go, because there is a voting process. And 

after that, we will come back and go from there. 

Dr. Fred Kagan is the Christopher DeMuth chair and director of 

the Critical Threats Project at the American Enterprise Institute. 

Mr. Kagan is also a former professor of military history at the 

United States Military Academy at West Point. 

Mr. Ilan Berman is vice president of the American Foreign Policy 

Council. Mr. Berman is widely published on issues of regional security and foreign policy and has also consulted for the CIA, the Department of Defense, and other government agencies. 

Mr. Tony Badran is a research fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. Mr. Badran has written extensively on 

Hezbollah and focuses his research on countries in the Levant and 

their regional relationship with militant and terrorist groups. 

Dr. Dan Byman is a professor in the Security Studies Program 

at Georgetown University School of Foreign Service. Dr. Byman is 

also the research director of the Center for Middle Eastern Policy 

6

at the Brookings Institute, where he specializes in Middle East security and counterterrorism. 

Dr. Kagan, we will start with you. You have 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF FREDERICK W. KAGAN, PH.D., CHRISTOPHER 

DEMUTH CHAIR AND DIRECTOR, CRITICAL THREATS 

PROJECT, AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE 

Mr. KAGAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member 

Keating. 

You have stolen a lot of my testimony among the four statements, so I think I will——

Mr. POE. We read your testimony, so we just requoted it. 

Mr. KAGAN. And I won’t weary your ears by repeating it one 

more time, but instead I would like to make just a few of the points 

in here and speak to some of the issues that you have raised in 

your statements briefly. 

We all agree about what the scale of the Iranian threat is, that 

Iran is acting as an enemy state, that it is engaged in a lot of malign activity in Syria and Iraq and Yemen, and so forth. 

I had the opportunity a few weeks ago to spend 4 days in Baghdad at the invitation of Prime Minister Abadi, and it was fascinating. And I would like to share with you, actually, a couple of 

observations because I think they bear on some of the comments 

that were made today. 

Yes, Quds Force Commander Qasem Soleimani spends a lot of 

time in Iraq. Yes, Iranian-controlled Shia militias, particularly the 

Badr Corps, control Diyala province and, I think, largely control 

the activities of the Fifth Iraqi Army Division in that province. And 

we certainly have other lethal Shia militias, such as Asaib Ahl alHaq, which was deployed in Syria and then is now back in Iraq 

and so on. 

But I think that it is too much to say that Abadi is controlled 

by Iran or desires to be. And I think it is also too much to say that 

the Iraqi Army is controlled by Iran or desires to be. That was not 

at all the sense that I got from speaking with numerous Iraqi 

Army officers and even Shia politicians. 

We need to remember that the Iranians are generally as offensive to their neighbors as they are to us, if not more so, and their 

ability to antagonize is very high. I did absolutely see in the middle 

of the Green Zone a billboard memorializing Iranian IRGC Brigadier General Taghavi, who was killed around Samarra, which had 

the IRGC logo at the bottom of it. And that took my breath away 

because I haven’t seen that in Iraq before. 

On the other hand, what I generally heard was a desire for the 

United States to offer an alternative to a very overbearing neighbor 

that the Iraqis know does not have their best interests at heart, 

even the Shia. 

And I think that, as we reflect on Iraq and we reflect on the role 

that Iran is playing in Iraq, we need to reflect on our role also, and 

we need to understand the issue of what alternative we are giving 

the Iraqis. We are providing a lot. The air campaign is more effective than has been made out, but we could be providing a lot more. 

And if we would lean into an attempt to help support the new government in Iraq, I think we would have a chance of weaning it 

7

away from Iranian control, which is always problematic in an Arab 

state. 

I think one of the things that it is very important to recognize 

is a threat that emanates from Iran is not just the evil that Tehran 

intentionally does but the evil that it does unintentionally, as well. 

It is a pose of the regime that it is an Islamic regime and that it 

is not a Shia regime. They have not been able to convince hardly 

anybody except themselves of the truth of that. 

And the fact is that the Iranians back sectarian groups pretty 

much across the board. And those sectarian groups are accelerating 

and driving sectarian violence throughout the region, which, in 

turn, is, in my opinion, one of the principal drivers of mobilization 

for Al Qaeda and its affiliates and radicalization for Muslims in the 

United States and the West. 

So the problem is not simply that we need to get past our hostility with Iran, which I agree is extremely unlikely. The problem 

is that, even if we decided that we were going to try to ally with 

Iran in the region and we were going to rely on Iran as a partner, 

as some have suggested, although no one in this room, they would 

do it badly, and they would continue to do it badly, and they would 

continue to cause more problems than they solve, to the extent that 

they ever solve problems, because Iran is really not much of a problem-solving state. It is much more of a problem-causing state. 

I think it is very important to make the point that the nuclear 

negotiations cannot be separated from concerns about Iranian activities abroad because any relaxation of sanctions, whether they 

are formally related to terrorist activities or not, will provide a 

massive influx of resources to the Iranian regime, which it will use 

in very predictable ways. 

It will use those resources, for one thing, as the Supreme Leader 

has announced and President Rohani has backed, to try to make 

Iran proof against sanctions anytime in the future. Will they be 

able to do that? Probably not. Will they be able to weaken our ability to use this economic lever in the future? Almost certainly. 

So we need to understand the risk that is inherent in relaxing 

sanctions in pursuit of a deal that appears to offer modest gains 

for us at best. 

And, lastly, Iran is under tremendous economic pressure from us 

and from low prices of oil, and that is likely to continue. The military adventurism that they are engaged in is expensive. Supporting 

the Assad regime is expensive. Doing a variety of other nefarious 

things that they do are expensive. If we relax sanctions in pursuit 

of this deal, we will be giving them the resources that they need 

at a moment of great pinch for them, and you can be certain that 

a fair percentage of those resources will be diverted to activities 

that we have articulated here as very problematic. 

I am over time, and I don’t want to strain your patience. I will 

just say, if anyone is interested also in talking about the question 

of how much of a reformer and a moderate President Rohani is, I 

think that is a topic that bears quite a lot of discussion, as well. 

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you. 

Mr. POE. Thank you, Dr. Kagan. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Kagan follows:]

8


93283a-1.eps
9


93283a-2.eps
10


93283a-3.eps
11


93283a-4.eps
12

Mr. POE. Mr. Berman, 5 minutes. 

STATEMENT OF MR. ILAN I. BERMAN, VICE PRESIDENT, 

AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY COUNCIL 

Mr. BERMAN. Thank you, sir. 

Chairman Poe, Ranking Member Keating, thank you very much 

for the opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the global 

threat, the truly global threat, of Iran. 

This is a subject that unfortunately has not been addressed seriously or comprehensively over the last year and a half. Instead, if 

I could borrow a phrase from the late New York Senator Daniel 

Patrick Moynihan, we have defined Iran’s deviancy down. We have 

concerned ourselves with the prospects of achieving a deal over 

Iran’s nuclear program to the exclusion of a serious conversation 

about other aspects of Iran’s rogue behavior. And we have neglected to think deeply and to focus on what Iran actually says and 

what it believes. 

That is a very good place to start, I think. The roots of Iran’s current confrontational world view stretch back to the Islamic Revolution that occurred 36 years ago this month. That event enshrined 

the idea of exporting the revolution as a cardinal regime principle 

for Iran’s new government, and it is an idea that remains very 

much in effect today. 

The State Department’s most recent report on global terrorism 

trends, which all of you gentlemen referenced, makes a point of 

demonstrating that, even though Iran is constrained by international pressure, Iranian rogue activity globally is on the rise. 

Iran, in other words, is on the march. 

It is doing so in multiple theaters, from Syria to the Palestinian 

territories, to Africa, to even Eurasia. Because my time is limited 

here, let me focus simply on two. 

The first is Latin America, which is very much in the headlines 

today because of the suspected murder of Argentine prosecutor 

Alberto Nisman. But Iran’s intrusion into the region is not a new 

phenomenon.It dates back to the early 1980s, when Iran helped 

Lebanon’s Hezbollah set up shop in the tri-border region where 

Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay intersect. That beachhead, in 

turn, allowed Hezbollah to carry out the 1992 attack on the Israeli 

Embassy in Buenos Aires and, 2 years later, to carry out the attack 

on the AMIA center, which ranks as the largest incident of Islamist 

terrorism to date in the Western Hemisphere other than 9/11. 

But, over the past decade, Iran’s regional footprint has gotten 

much larger. Beginning in 2005, Iran systematically expanded its 

contacts throughout the region, leveraging the radical regime of 

Hugo Chavez in Venezuela as a gateway to expand its ties to what 

are called the Bolivarian nations, the radical, leftist, anti-American 

nations of the region, in particular to the regime of Evo Morales 

in Bolivia and of Rafael Correa in Ecuador. 

But these formal ties have been mirrored by a large and effective 

clandestine network that Iran has succeeded in erecting in the region. Mr. Nisman, in his May 2013 report, detailed that Iran had 

succeeded over the preceding 30 years in establishing a terror network encompassing no fewer than 8 countries in the region. 

13

Via that network, Iran has been able to attempt at least three 

attacks on the U.S. homeland over the past decade: The 2007 attempt to blow up fuel tanks underneath JFK Airport in New York; 

the fall 2011 plan for widespread cyber attacks, to be carried out 

jointly by Venezuela and Iran; and, most famously, the foiled attempt to assassinate Saudi Envoy Adel al-Jubeir in a Washington 

restaurant in October 2011. 

In short, Iran’s presence in the Americas is growing, and so is 

the threat that it has the potential to pose to the U.S. homeland 

from the Western Hemisphere. 

The second but equally germane field where Iran is expanding it 

activities is cyberspace. This capability, which has manifested since 

the popularization of Stuxnet in 2009 and 2010, is not simply defensive in nature. It is aimed at both limiting access to the Internet 

among ordinary Iranians, a campaign domestically, and also an external campaign aimed at targeting Western institutions and infrastructure. 

The cybersecurity firm Cylance, in a December 2014 report, 

noted that, since 2012, Iranian hackers have attacked government 

agencies and companies in countries such as Saudi Arabia, South 

Korea, Turkey, and beyond. Here in the United States, Iranian entities have targeted financial institutions like Bank of America and 

JPMorgan Chase and have also hacked the Navy’s unclassified 

email network. The study cites Israeli expert Gabi Siboni as saying 

that Iran should be considered a first-tier cyber power. It is one 

that can cause considerable harm to the United States via cyberspace if it chooses to do so. 

Sadly, a sober assessment of Iran’s threat potential and its growing activism has been obscured by the ongoing talks over Iran’s nuclear program. Today, we have become incentivized not to call attention to Iranian activities or to Iranian ideology lest a tactical 

bargain with the regime over its nukes becomes more difficult to 

obtain as a result. But, as I hope I have pointed out, making that 

choice, making that bargain, is something that we do at our great 

peril and to our great detriment. 

Thank you. 

Mr. POE. Thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Berman follows:]

14


93283b-1.eps
15


93283b-2.eps
16


93283b-3.eps
17


93283b-4.eps
18


93283b-5.eps
19


93283b-6.eps
20


93283b-7.eps
21


93283b-8.eps
22


93283b-9.eps
23

Mr. POE. Mr. Badran, you can have 5 minutes, and then we will 

get Dr. Byman. And then we will break for votes and then come 

back for questions, so everyone knows the order of events. Thank 

you very much. 

Mr. Badran, you can proceed. 

STATEMENT OF MR. TONY BADRAN, RESEARCH FELLOW, 

FOUNDATION FOR DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES 

Mr. BADRAN. Thank you, Chairman Poe and Ranking Member 

Keating. Thank you very much for inviting me to this very timely 

hearing. 

And I will talk a little bit about the organic relationship between 

Iran and Hezbollah but also the template that they have put together in the Middle East and how this poses a threat to U.S. interests there. I will give a brief synopsis, and I will be glad to talk 

about the details with answering your questions. 

The nature of the Iranian threat extends beyond terrorism. A 

senior Iranian official put it recently to Reuters, and he says, everything is about the balance of power in the region. So they are 

focused on that issue. 

And sensing that their moment has arrived, the Iranians are in 

the middle of an aggressive region-wide expansionist drive. They 

openly brag today about controlling four Arab capitals—Baghdad, 

Beirut, Damascus, and Sana’a. In each of these capitals, the Iranians have developed proxies either by creating new militias on the 

Hezbollah model or by coopting local actors. And they are uses 

these proxies to extend Iran’s reach and integrating them into a 

broader strategy targeting U.S. allies and interests. 

And Hezbollah is at the center of this strategy. Since the very 

beginning of the Islamic revolutionary regime, that was when 

Hezbollah was created, and its progenitors sought to spawn movements along that model in the Arab world to allow them to embed 

themselves in Arab societies and project influence. 

As Representative Issa said, this is not new. They are the same 

faces. The Defense Minister of Iran is the same person who was the 

IRGC commander in Lebanon at the time of the barracks bombing 

in Beirut. What is new, what the Iranians hadn’t counted on, however, is that the United States would one day acquiesce to this bid 

of regional hegemony. 

When Iranian officials talk about the various assets that they are 

supporting in the Arab world, they have a point of reference, which 

is the Hezbollah model. It is a specific template which consists of 

developing political-military structures parallel to central Arab governments, especially where those governments are weak. And much 

like the Soviet Union before, they set up proxies to dominate 

states. 

So first there is what is called the Basij model, in reference to 

the Iranian paramilitary group. This is what we are seeing the Iranians now do in Iraq with the so-called Popular Mobilization Units. 

And ‘‘basij’’ is Farsi for ‘‘mobilization.’’ So they are cloning structures. And in Syria, they are doing it with the so-called National 

Defense Forces. 

But the big assets really are the Hezbollah-style and Hezbollahtrained militias that operate either in coordination with or under 

24

direct control of the Quds Force, bear the IRGC logo, and adhere 

to the ruling idealogical doctrine that underpins the Islamic regime 

in Tehran. These are the militias that now effectively control the 

governments, the Arab capitals. 

Now, these Shiite militias also have a new function that had not 

been present before. They used to be deployed to do terror activities 

in the past, in the 1980s, as we have discussed, but now they are 

being used, especially the Iraqi militias, as an expeditionary force 

that can be sort of sent across borders to advance Iranian interests 

in neighboring countries like Syria and so on. But there is another 

aspect to this strategy, that this is not just an expeditionary force. 

They also look to have their assets dominate state institutions. And 

this is really a critical point. 

There is a synergy now that is growing, especially in Lebanon 

and Iraq, between Iran’s assets and the security forces in both 

countries. This is a matter of great consequence because the United 

States has tacitly endorsed this synergy because it is focused on 

fighting Al Qaeda. So, effectively, we see the Iranians as partners 

in this fight, and the Iranians have recognized this opening and are 

exploiting it, positioning themselves as the only viable partners 

against Sunni extremist groups. 

Of course, this is a disastrous policy course for the United States. 

As things stand today, the Obama administration’s partnership 

with Iran, de facto partnership across the region has resulted in 

the gradual loss of all commonality with traditional allies. 

But Iran’s expansionist push, of course, is aimed at targeting 

these allies and their interests, as we saw in the Golan Heights recently. Iran has set up Hezbollah-Syria down there, and they are 

looking to set up a new front in the Golan. They are leading, currently, as we speak, an integrated attack pushing into southern 

Syria, to the borders of Jordan and Israel. 

Of course, as Ilan has talked about, this is a global threat. Peru 

and Uruguay recently—I am sure Ilan will talk about this some 

more—have caught Hezbollah members and Iranian senior diplomats at their Embassy planning operations. 

Yemen stands also as a major problem because it actually has a 

dual function, on the one hand to pressure Gulf allies, but on the 

other hand also, by controlling the straits of the Red Sea, this is 

Iran’s preferred smuggling route into Gaza via the Sudan and the 

Red Sea. So they will then be in charge of the Hormuz Straits and 

the Bab-el-Mandeb Straits, which makes it a very strategic asset 

for them. 

Now, basically, Washington cannot lose sight of the fact that Iran 

remains an unreconstructed revolutionary actor, and it cannot just 

simply be integrated into a new security architecture, as the administration has made it known. And so we need to roll back that 

influence and disabuse it of this dream of regional hegemony. 

There are some steps that we can discuss in the Q&A. I have 

gone over my limit, so thanks again for the opportunity, and I look 

forward to taking your questions. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Badran follows:]

25


93283c-1.eps
26


93283c-2.eps
27


93283c-3.eps
28


93283c-4.eps
29


93283c-5.eps
30


93283c-6.eps
31


93283c-7.eps
32


93283c-8.eps
33


93283c-9.eps
34

Mr. POE. Dr. Byman? 

STATEMENT OF DANIEL L. BYMAN, PH.D., PROFESSOR, SECURITY STUDIES PROGRAM, EDMUND A. WALSH SCHOOL OF 

FOREIGN SERVICE, GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY 

Mr. BYMAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member Keating, and other members of this subcommittee, I appreciate and am honored by the opportunity to testify. 

Rather than repeat much of what has been said, which I agree 

with, I will focus on areas that have not been addressed. 

But let me say from the start, I think I have a slightly different 

view on Iran, which is: Iran can be exceptionally aggressive, but 

Iran can also be exceptionally weak, it can be cautious, and it is 

often self-defeating. And we have to look at Iran not only as the 

aggressive power that it is but, also, at times, as the foolish power 

that it is, as the weak power that it is. 

Iran’s military is, I would say, largely pathetic, certainly by 

Western standards. Its economy is in free-fall. It lacks stature in 

many countries. And we have to recognize these limits even as we 

try to combat its support for terrorism. 

Let me begin by talking about Syria. The Syrian civil war is a 

very different sort of thing for Iran and has changed much of what 

Iran has done historically. First of all, the Syrian civil war, Iran 

has gone all in. And, from Iran’s point of view, this is a tremendous 

success. It is quite fair to say that without Iranian support Bashar 

al-Assad might have fallen, and Iran recognizes that. 

However, Iran had to lose relations with a number of Sunni allies that it had been working with. And the Palestinian group 

Hamas, in particular, distanced itself from Iran, although there are 

incentives on both sides to stay close. 

Also, what Iran is doing, what Hezbollah is doing in both Iraq 

and Syria is actually more akin to counterinsurgency. They are 

fighting on behalf of governments against rebels. And so, in a way, 

Iran is in a different role than it often has been historically. 

Because of Hezbollah’s extensive role in Syria, Hezbollah in general is more cautious about a widespread confrontation with Israel. 

Hezbollah is overextended. And that certainly doesn’t mean there 

will be no confrontation with Israel, but for Hezbollah it is exceptionally risky, given how much they have invested in the Syria conflict. 

Should Iran get a nuclear weapon, which would be a horrible 

thing, it might exploit that protection and become more aggressive 

in supporting the groups it supports now and even reach out to 

others. If it were thwarted, however, through military means, it 

might use terrorists to take revenge. And, in fact, I think this 

would be likely. Israel is a particularly likely target of Iranianbacked terrorism. 

I would say, under current circumstances, Iran is highly unlikely 

to do the most extreme forms of terrorism, such as a casualty attack on the 9/11 scale or attacks using unconventional weapons. 

Nor is Iran likely to transfer a nuclear weapon, if it had one, to 

a terrorist group. And I can go into my reasons for that should 

there be interest. 

35

Should there be additional sanctions on Iran in the name of 

counterterrorism, inevitably they would be seen as sanctions because of the nuclear program. And U.S. allies and Europe, in particular, would have that perception regardless of the justification 

given in the U.S. context. 

In my view, the United States should identify red lines for Iranian behavior, but these red lines need to be things that the administration works with Congress on. There were repeated Iranian 

violations of U.S. red lines in Iraq, and the United States did nothing. This happened under multiple administrations. And there 

needs to be consensus before Iran acts so we know how to respond. 

And, in particular, I will ask that the United States consider focusing on plots rather than attacks. Just because an attack does 

not succeed does not mean the intent was not there. And, to me, 

this is an exceptionally dangerous issue, because, often, attacks 

don’t succeed simply due to bad luck on the part of the attackers. 

And I ask, had the attack on the Saudi Ambassador succeeded, 

had the Saudi Ambassador been killed, had, say, a dozen American 

diners also been killed, what would the United States have done? 

And I ask that we think about that now so that we are prepared 

to respond should there be a similar provocation in the future. 

I will also suggest that the United States needs to clarify its 

Syria policy. Right now, the United States is bombing the enemy 

of the Assad regime, and it is not surprising that there is a widespread perception in the region that the United States has a deal 

with Hezbollah, the United States has a deal with Iran. And, regardless, I don’t personally think the United States does have that 

deal, but that perception matters probably more than the reality 

among many U.S. allies, and that is hurting broader U.S. interests. 

I will conclude by saying that, in the end, Iran’s lack of strategic 

options and its general weakness will make it hard to divorce Iran 

from terrorist groups. It is working with these groups in part because it doesn’t have better options, and it is hard to change that. 

I think better policies can reduce the scope and scale but not eliminate it altogether. 

My formal statement goes into these points more extensively, 

and I thank you for your time today. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Byman follows:]

36


93283d-1.eps
37


93283d-2.eps
38


93283d-3.eps
39


93283d-4.eps
40


93283d-5.eps
41


93283d-6.eps
42


93283d-7.eps
43


93283d-8.eps
44

Mr. POE. Thank you, gentlemen. 

The subcommittee will be in recess until after the series of two 

votes, so we will be in recess until then. We are adjourned. Maybe 

three votes. 

[Recess.] 

Mr. POE. The subcommittee will come to order. I would ask one 

of the people on the very back row, if you would shut the backdoor, 

I would appreciate it. 

Thank you, gentlemen, for returning, assuming that you may 

have never left. Thank you for your insightful testimony. It was excellent. 

I want to start with Yemen and the country of Yemen, a supporter, generally, of the United States. Yemen—good relationship. 

Are the Iranians responsible for the overthrow of the government? 

Anybody? You all have an opinion, I know. 

Mr. KAGAN. I will take it. 

So, at Critical Threats, we have been tracking Yemen very, very 

closely, and we have an analyst looking at this full-time. 

I don’t think that the Iranians are responsible for the overthrow 

in the sense that I don’t think they ordered it and I don’t think 

that they intended for it to happen. I think that Iranian strategy 

in Yemen was, as has been described by all of the witnesses and 

everyone on the panel, about getting their tentacles into the government, getting effective control without responsibility for elements of the security service. I don’t think that they intended to 

sponsor a coup d’etat. 

It is not entirely clear to me that the Houthis intended to stage 

a coup d’etat either. They did, effectively, and we should call things 

by their right names. But I think that they may have gotten there 

by having their bluff called by President Hadi in a way that turned 

a power play into a coup d’etat. I think that is possible. 

But are the Iranians supporting the Houthis? Absolutely. Are 

they supporting them in this play? Yep. Will they continue to support them? You bet. 

Mr. POE. And, Mr. Berman? Different answer? 

Mr. BERMAN. I defer to Tony. 

Mr. POE. Mr. Badran? 

Mr. BADRAN. Oh, I am sorry. I wasn’t——

Mr. BERMAN. No, no, no. 

Mr. POE. One of you. Mr. Badran. I am going to pick a horse and 

ride it. Mr. Badran? 

Mr. BADRAN. Okay. 

Well, just to add to what Dr. Kagan said, that now that this has 

happened, the Iranians are not hiding the lofty plans that they 

have for the Houthis and how they want to integrate them into 

their broader network in the region. So you have posters of the 

Houthi leader in Tehran with writings, you know, that the revolution, i.e. The Islamic Revolution, continues. And so they see it as 

an extension of their own vision and network of alliances in the region. 

And, recently, a Web site affiliated with the IRGC laid down 

what it hopes to see done by the Houthis. And it is exactly what 

I have described, this template that I was talking about. They advised them to create Popular Mobilization Units. They advised 

45

them to integrate with the military forces so that you will have the 

same system that you have in Lebanon, that you have in Iraq, 

whereby you have an asset, an Iranian asset, or ally, in this case, 

shaping the military security and intelligence and broader strategic 

orientation of the state in which they are operating. So I think that 

is what they want. 

And I mentioned—I am not sure if I mentioned in my openings 

remarks that Velayati, Khomeini’s consigliere, as it were, recently 

received a delegation of Yemenite Houthi clerics in Tehran and 

again also said to them that he hopes that they play the role of 

Hezbollah in Lebanon. 

So they have their plans, and they see also—you know, he even 

had a statement about how the road to the liberation of Palestine 

will pass through Yemen and so on. So, I mean, they have big, big 

plans, I think, for the Houthis. 

Now, whether the Houthis end up not having much of a choice 

but to go along with these or whether they pull back remains to 

be seen, I think. 

Mr. POE. You mentioned in your testimony that they were in different—Hezbollah and Iran—sponsor of terrorism was in—or 

maybe it was Dr. Kagan—they are in every continent except Antarctica. One of you said that. Which one of you said that? 

You don’t remember? One of you said it. 

You think you did? 

Okay. Well, how many countries are they involved in? If you 

could be a little more specific. 

Mr. BADRAN. Right. 

Mr. POE. In your analysis, you all’s analysis, world sponsor of 

terrorism—state sponsor of terrorism, how many countries is Iran, 

with its affiliate Hezbollah or some other affiliate, involved in terror, mischief, if I can use that phrase? 

Mr. BADRAN. I think one way to look at it—and this is not comprehensive—one way to look at it is, wherever there is a Shia, especially Lebanese Shia, population—for instance, in West Africa—

that gives them an opportunity, gives them a pool of recruits. Same 

thing applies to South America, where there is a large Lebanese 

constituency. So then they latch onto that. 

And since Hezbollah now is really the dominant force among the 

Lebanese Shia, that extends into these areas. So the guy, for instance, that the Peruvian police arrested in October had a Sierra 

Leonean passport. Sierra Leone is where a lot of Lebanese Shia 

expats live and control much of the business. Nigeria, same thing. 

And that is where you had an operation that the Iranians were involved in with arms trafficking. 

So they sit at the nexus of these things, in whatever they can 

procure money, weapons, smuggling, or recruit operatives. So I will 

stop at this particular angle, but I am sure——

Mr. POE. So they are opportunists. They take the opportunity, 

when a situation in a particular country meets their needs because 

of the local population, that they get involved. 

How many countries would that be? That is really my question. 

Just give me a ballpark figure. Somebody. 

Mr. BERMAN. I would just chime in here at this point and say 

that I think it is difficult to come up with anything resembling an 

46

accurate tally, because what you have, in many instances, are moments in time——

Mr. POE. Okay. 

Mr. BERMAN [continuing]. Sort of impressionistic events. For example, in Thailand and in New Delhi in 2012, when you had the 

attempted terrorist attacks on the Israeli persons of interest and 

targets, it wasn’t clear that there was a longstanding, established 

Hezbollah or IRGC cell, but it was clear that, for that particular 

operation, it was operating in those countries. 

That makes it difficult to quantify exactly what size the global 

footprint is. But it is clear that, where there is empty political 

space, as there is in Latin America, where there is economic opportunity and the opportunity to exploit gray and black markets, as 

there is in Asia, the IRGC is very heavily involved, and, to a lesser 

extent, so is Hezbollah. 

Mr. POE. One more question regarding that issue. Where does 

Iran get the money to be the state sponsor of terror that it is, to 

pay for all of these operations? Whether they be a moment in time 

or whether they be long-term, where do they get the money? 

Mr. BYMAN. Mr. Chairman, part of why Iran sponsors terrorism 

is it is relatively cheap compared to other alternatives. 

It gives a lot of money to the Lebanese Hezbollah. So you can cite 

any figure you want, but let’s say several hundred million a year. 

But in the vast majority of other cases, we are talking low millions, 

we are talking often single-digit personnel. And if you compare that 

to the cost of, say, you know, having a brigade in a combat zone, 

it is peanuts. 

So, in a strange way, this is a way of saving money rather than 

spending money, the exception, though, being Lebanon in the past 

and I would say Syria, in particular, today, where Iran is pouring 

I have no idea how much, but it is, I would say, in the high hundreds of millions, billions. I am not sure of the exact figure. 

Mr. POE. So they get more bang for their buck. Even probably 

with the cost of developing the nuclear weapons, they can go and 

commit specific acts of terror for a lot less money. 

Mr. BYMAN. I would put nuclear weapons and terrorism on, kind 

of, two ends of a spectrum, where terrorism gives you lots of local 

capabilities, lots of ways to do small-scale things, and, of course, a 

nuclear weapon is the other extreme. 

Mr. BADRAN. The other aspect, also, is when you have a group 

like Hezbollah that has gotten into a position of prominence in the 

Lebanese state, it gives them opportunities to exploit corruption 

and other ventures within the Lebanese state to make money—

racketeering, drug trade, weapons smuggling, and so on and so 

forth. 

And then when you latch on the extra layer of Lebanese Shiite 

businessmen, very well-to-do, in Latin America, West Africa—for 

instance, in Angola, the Treasury Department has designated a 

Shia businessman, three brothers actually, vastly—the Tajideen 

brothers—very successful. They are all Hezbollah operatives, right? 

So a lot of these guys they can either extort money from or just 

simply incorporate into their financial networks. 

So there are multiple revenues that they can actually draw on. 

Mr. POE. Thank you. 

47

I will yield to the ranking member, Mr. Keating. 

Mr. KEATING. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

Given the apparent opposite positions on the civil conflict in 

Syria, what is your assessment of the current state of relations 

with Iran and Hamas? And to what extent did Iran back Hamas 

in the July 2014 conflict with Israel? 

Mr. BADRAN. I think, in many respects, that war was Hamas’s 

way of reorienting its ship back to Iran. 

The Iranians have been able to sort of get beyond the political 

leadership of Hamas, Khaled Meshaal and all these guys that 

broke with Syria and broke with the axis once the Syrian revolution broke out, and reach directly to the military commanders. So 

now you have a lot of more prominence of the Qassam Brigade 

commanders and the various other—Islamic Jihad, for instance, got 

its profile heightened as a result of Hamas’s abandonment of 

Bashar. 

Although, now, they are right on the, sort of, road to penance 

back to Tehran. And you hear a lot of reports about impending visits to Tehran by Khaled Meshaal, for instance. And, ironically, it 

is actually Bashar al-Assad who is saying, no, not yet, he has to 

pay for it some more, he has to beg some more, he has to be made 

to pay for his sins some more. 

So I think the Iranians—Hamas knows that neither Turkey nor 

Qatar, nobody else can actually replace Tehran as a source of firepower for them. So they don’t have a choice; they are going to 

maintain that relationship. 

Mr. KEATING. Okay. 

Mr. BERMAN. Sir, if I may, I was actually in Israel right at the 

tail end of the 50-day Gaza war last year, and I had very interesting conversations with a number of Israeli officials, who made 

the point of telling me that what had happened was essentially a 

strategic tie, that Hamas had gained something in terms of renewed ideological relevance and legitimacy, but that Israel had 

gained something, too, because it had managed to erode Hamas’s 

stockpile of short-range rockets; it had managed, sort of, to go into 

Gaza and hollow out the arsenal. 

The reality is, I think, that the proper context to understand the 

Gaza war is as a bid for continued relevance on the part of Hamas. 

If you look at what had happened in the months preceding, Hamas 

had found itself unexpectedly the junior partner in this hybrid Palestinian Authority unity government that Mahmoud Abbas had 

proposed, and their funding stream had dried up from Iran because 

Hamas and Iran had essentially fallen out over Syria, and Hamas 

had had its budget zeroed out, effectively. The end result was that 

Hamas had to rely on sponsors like Turkey, like Qatar to pay salaries, for example, in the Gaza Strip. 

That is not the case today. What you are seeing today is a renewed closeness of ties between Hamas and Tehran, animated by 

Hamas’s being able to prove itself as a vanguard of the Palestinian 

resistance, as they would term it, but also by interest from Iran in 

regaining some of the ground in the Sunni world that it has lost 

over the last 3 years because it has supported Bashar al-Assad’s 

Syria in a way that has alienated its traditional allies or at least 

its traditional partners. 

48

Mr. KEATING. We have made a lot about the commonality of Iran 

and U.S. in terms of ISIS. But there are reports that have surfaced 

about—leave it that way—about the brutality of the Shia militia 

from Iran, not only going after ISIS but then, given the opportunity, just brutally attacking Sunni tribes. And, of course, in the 

big picture, that creates an enormous problem, you know, for any 

kind of success in the long run. 

Do you want to comment on that aspect of their actions? 

Mr. KAGAN. I would love to. 

I think that the commonality of interest with Iran over ISIS is 

greatly exaggerated. We have an interest in separating ISIS from 

the Sunni community and bringing the Sunni community back into 

polities of which it has historically been a part in Iraq and Syria 

and elsewhere. 

Iran, whatever their statements, tends to see the Sunni community as ISIS, and their militias certainly treat them in that way. 

So the reports of brutality and mass executions and mass graves 

in Diyala province are well-documented, but even, in addition to 

that, one of the reasons Baghdad is relatively secure now is because the Shia militias went into a small area called Jurf alSakher, southwest of Baghdad, which was a Sunni area and has 

long been an AQI and now ISIS support, and they just moved everybody out. They just took the entire Sunni population and moved 

them out. And they have no plans to bring them back. 

And that fact came up repeatedly in discussions that I had in 

Baghdad, with Sunni leaders and others saying, you know, you 

want the Sunni community to work with Baghdad, but, you know, 

the example is Jurf al-Sakher. So this is definitely much more of 

a problem than any commonality in interest we might have. 

Mr. KEATING. Yeah. Well, thank you. 

I yield back. 

Mr. POE. I thank the gentleman from Massachusetts. 

The Chair recognizes the gentleman from New York, Mr. Higgins, for his questions. 

Mr. HIGGINS. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for holding 

this important hearing. 

I just kind of want to explore the role of Qasem Soleimani. You 

know, we have read in the last several months about him. He is 

probably the most influential force in the Middle East, not necessarily for good, right now—in Iraq, in Syria, in south Lebanon 

with Hezbollah. 

I am interested in your thoughts about him, and his influence 

embellished or is that an accurate description of his outsized influence? 

Mr. KAGAN. Well, he is, in fact, extremely important. He does 

work directly to the Supreme Leader. We call it the IRGC Quds 

Force. There is the notion that he is subordinated to the IRGC 

commander, General Jafari. In reality, I do not believe that he is 

actually subordinated. He does work directly to the Supreme Leader, and they have a very close relationship. 

And Soleimani has bragged to American commanders in the region about how he is their opposite number and how he is in control of things. And there is a lot of bravado there, but he clearly 

49

is in control of a lot of the military operations that are going on 

in Iraq and Syria, especially by militia elements. 

One of the things that our team has been observing, however, 

that is very interesting is that there has been a conscious and deliberate campaign by IRGC senior commanders over the past several months to build him up, and it has become a mayor regime 

PR objective to establish him as a major figure. We are still 

noodling what that is about. It is not entirely clear what the regime or this element of it intends to accomplish. 

But he is definitely dominant in the region, but there is also a 

campaign to make him seem even more significant than he might 

be. 

Mr. BERMAN. If I could add just 10 seconds on what Dr. Kagan 

said, I think that is exactly right. 

It is necessary to understand Soleimani in the two constituencies 

in which he moves. The first is the external one, in which he is a 

fixer and he is sort of a jack of all trades in Iraq and, to some extent, in Syria, as well. He has famously boasted to General 

Petraeus when Petraeus was in charge of U.S. Forces in Iraq that 

he was his opposite number, that he was in control of Iranian policy, not only in Iraq but also in Afghanistan and in Syria. 

But the messaging campaign that you see coming out of the regime now—and it is, by the way, broader than just the IRGC. It 

looks very much like a public diplomacy push on the part of the 

Iranian regime. It has cast Soleimani in the light of a savior of the 

Islamic republic. 

Because one of the things, I believe, that the regime is trying to 

do is to rally public opinion around Iran’s expeditionary forces. And 

the perfect target of that is ISIS. Soleimani is now at the tip of the 

spear in the Iranian fight against ISIS, and he is being perceived 

more and more not like a knight-errant on the part of the Supreme 

Leader but as a champion for the regime itself. It is one that has, 

I think, rebounded to the benefit of the stature of the IRGC writ 

large within Iran itself. 

Mr. BADRAN. Just very quickly, also, in this particular angle in 

southern Syria, the recent strike that the Israelis did there targeted a major general in the Quds Force that actually was brought 

in by Soleimani, so he is very much seen as Soleimani’s guy in 

Syria. 

In addition, it targeted Jihad Mughniyeh, Imad Mughniyeh’s son. 

Jihad Mughniyeh, there are a couple of stories about him. One was 

that he was living as a playboy in Beirut, and the party, because 

of the importance of his name and the legacy of his father, took 

him and shipped to Tehran, where, actually, Soleimani took him 

under his wing. And you will see a lot—at the funeral of 

Soleimani’s mother, Jihad Mughniyeh was right by his side, and he 

was kind of seen as his protege, probably being groomed for some 

future role. And the fact that he was with Soleimani’s man in 

southern Syria suggests that they had a lot of plans for him as 

that. 

But, as Dr. Kagan and Berman have said, basically there is a 

huge information operation that the Quds Force is running, with 

Qasem Soleimani popping up in pictures everywhere on every 

front, including, now, supposedly in southern Syria as they are 

50

making a push to the south. Nobody knows if it is real or not; it 

is just that they want to put his face that he is on the front line, 

Iran is on the front line through Qasem Soleimani on every front, 

both with the Israelis and with ISIS, in the region. 

Mr. BYMAN. Sir, I will only briefly add that, although we focus 

a lot on Soleimani, the Quds Force, the IRGC, they report to the 

Supreme Leader. They reflect Iranian policy. Policies are coordinated. They are quite good at what they do, and they also are given 

some freedom to act. But, in general, we always need to remember 

this is Iranian policy rather than, necessarily, Quds Force policy. 

Mr. HIGGINS. I am out of time. 

Mr. POE. I don’t use this word very often, but I will be liberal 

with the time if you have another question or two. 

Mr. HIGGINS. Well, the recent Shia militia victory over ISIS in 

Iraq by the Badr organization—who is the primary influence in the 

Badr organization? 

Mr. KAGAN. So the Badr organization is commanded by Hadi alAmiri, who is an Iraqi. He is a subordinate, basically, of Qasem 

Soleimani, along with another Iraqi, nominally, named Muhandis, 

who is the leader of the Kata’ib Hezbollah militia, and he is also 

a subordinate of Soleimani. 

Mr. HIGGINS. If Congress authorizes the President to commit 

ground troops in Iraq, aren’t we entering into a similar situation 

that we entered into in 2003? 

I mean, it is not as though, you know, American troops would 

just be fighting ISIS, which—it is estimated there are some 30,000 

fighters, which I still don’t quite understand, and anybody who 

looks at it rationally should question this. 

You have the Peshmerga, which is 190,000 fighters proven to be 

Western/United States allies, proven to be reliable, proven to be experienced. You have the Iraqi National Army; let’s say conservatively it is another 175,000. And you have the Shia militias. And 

then you have, you know, an estimated 31,000 ISIS fighters. We 

should be—the math doesn’t add up to a situation that we have 

right now, where ISIS is still dominant in that country. 

And my sense is that Soleimani will be using these Shia militias 

to fight both ISIS and the United States, because that is their history. And the bottom line is, for the second term of Nouri al-Maliki, 

Soleimani cut the deal not in Baghdad but in Tehran. And, you 

know, the consensus was that we will all be part of this bad deal 

under one condition, that the Americans leave. 

I am just very concerned about what happens if we commit 

ground troops, even on a limited basis, to Iraq to fight ISIL because 

we will be fighting other forces that we fought previously, as well. 

That is my last thought. 

Mr. KAGAN. If I could respond to that? 

Mr. HIGGINS. Sure. 

Mr. KAGAN. It is a very legitimate concern. And I think that it 

is quite possible that a significant American presence in Iraq could 

be targeted by Iranian militias. But I am a bit more concerned 

about what is likely to happen if we don’t involve ourselves and if 

we don’t offer the Iraqis an alternative. 

I would not be supportive of sending American troops into 

Diyala. That is controlled by Badr; it is controlled by Soleimani. 

51

The Iraqi Army unit there is infiltrated. But our general assessment is that there are Iraqi units in Anbar, in Ninawa, elsewhere, 

that are not controlled by the Iranians and that don’t want to be 

controlled by the Iranians and that want to have an alternative. 

And I would submit, this isn’t really about ground forces versus 

not ground forces. I mean, we have boots on the ground there now. 

You know, we don’t say that, but that is—they have boots, and 

they are on the ground. We are in it. And I think we have had a 

positive impact. 

I think we need to continue in a way that makes it clear to the 

Iraqis that they can have one set of advisors at any given moment. 

They can have Iranian advisors, or they can have American advisors. And that goes unit by unit. I think that you will find that, 

in a lot of places, they will prefer to have American advisors because we can bring a lot more to the table if we choose. 

Now, the Iranians will resist that. Will they attack us? I don’t 

know. There is a lot that goes into that calculous. And, of course, 

they can attack us anyway if we are in the region. 

But I think that we need to be very cognizant of the danger of 

being absent from this conflict in such a way that we give the 

Iraqis proof when they say, ‘‘Hey, the Iranians are here, and you 

are not. You know, what do you want us to do?’’

Mr. BADRAN. There is another concern I think that we have to 

keep in mind, is that there is a reason why the United States has 

failed to recruit significant Sunni tribes to fight this fight. And the 

reason ISIS’s power is so magnified is not because of how many 

people it has; it is because of the alliances that it has among the 

Sunni tribes. 

And the reason why it is capable to have this alliance is because 

of the nature of Iranian influence in the Baghdad government and 

the security forces, Ministry of Interior in particular. The Badr organization is very strong in the Ministry of Interior. In fact, the 

head of the Ministry of Interior is very much a subordinate of Hadi 

al-Amiri that Dr. Kagan mentioned. 

And so I think, once the—this is what I talked about in my testimony in terms of the synergy or the fusion between the Shiite militias on the one hand and the central government and how it completely complicates our ability when it comes to the Sunnis, both 

on partnering with the Sunnis and on defeating Sunni radical 

groups like ISIS. 

So I think the perception of us coming into Iraq sort of shoulderto-shoulder with a very dubious, penetrated central government to 

fight Sunnis is going to harm, I think, our alliances with a lot of 

Sunnis unless we, sort of, really leverage our interference to review 

how we deal with the Baghdad government and what the nature 

of the Baghdad government is. 

Mr. POE. I thank the gentleman from New York. 

The Chair will now recognize one of our new members, Ms. Kelly 

from Illinois, for her questions. 

Ms. KELLY. Thank you, Mr. Chair. 

I want to thank the committee and the witnesses for the opportunity to have this important discussion today. 

52

I just came from the House floor, and we had a moment the silence for Kayla Mueller. And her death is a real reminder to us of 

all the challenges that we face in this world. 

As we discuss global threats and Iran, I wanted to ask, how do 

you see Iranian objectives in Iraq different than the United States 

objectives? 

Mr. KAGAN. Well, I think the Iranians have a number of very 

clear objectives, and one of them that is in conflict is their objective 

is to get us out and keep us out forever, and our objective is, or 

should be, to continue to play some role. And I am not talking here 

about military. I am talking about influence—political, economic, 

and so forth. 

The Iranians very much would like Iraq to be subordinate to 

them, loyal to them, or at least hostile to us, and they have been 

working hard to make that happen. They are determined to ensure 

that there is a Shia government in power in Baghdad and that the 

Sunni are marginalized, because they see the Iraqi Sunni largely 

as a threat. And they have a number of other objectives with regard to the Kurds where we may or may not be a little bit crossed. 

But the most important conflict in our interest is not just in Iraq 

but it is around the region. The Iranians are very explicit about 

this in their statements and their actions. Their objective is to eject 

us from the Middle East entirely. That is their goal. And they work 

on making that happen. Our objective is to remain engaged in a 

region that is of critical strategic importance. 

Ms. KELLY. Uh-huh. 

Mr. KAGAN. As long as those interests are crossed in that way, 

we are going to be having problems. 

Ms. KELLY. Did you want to——

Mr. BERMAN. Just to add a layer of complexity to what Dr. 

Kagan said, I think it is necessary to understand Iran’s objectives 

in Iraq through prism of ideology as well. 

When the Ayatollah Khomeini swept to power in Tehran 36 

years ago this month, he was both the rahbar, the political leader 

of the Islamic republic, and the marja taqlid, the ideological religious model of emulation. 

The current Supreme Leader was a consensus candidate that 

emerged in 1989 after Khomeini’s death. He is superceded in the 

hierarchy of Shiite theology by a number of clerics, most importantly a gentleman by the name of Ali Sistani, who is an Iraqi cleric. 

So, when we talk in the context of what Iran wants in Iraq, the 

question of Iraqi independence is not just about Iraqi political independence; it is also about Iraq’s ideological independence. Because 

an independent Iraq that is capable of embracing the quietest tradition that Sistani espouses will be both an ideological and a political threat to Iran. So Iran’s objectives in Iraq are not only to keep 

us out but to keep other interpretations of Shiite Islam down. 

Mr. BYMAN. I will add only briefly that Iran also wants a weak 

Iraq and is comfortable with a low level of instability. Iran does not 

want the scale of violence that is happening in Iraq now, but they 

are much more comfortable with the low level because it makes the 

Iraqis dependent on Iran, and they are quite pleased with that. So 

53

some degree of strife and keeping Iraq off balance, in a way, serves 

the Iranian goals that Dr. Kagan identified. 

Ms. KELLY. Where do you see Iran’s influence in Iraq? Like, 

where is it strongest, and where is it weakest? 

Mr. BYMAN. What the Iranians are very good at, of course, is 

working with an array of Shia groups. And they have very good 

ties to the main government, to the Abadi government. 

However, Iran hedges its bets. So it works with groups, Shia 

groups, that at times shoot at each other. And it works with violent 

ones; it works with more moderate ones. It also works with an 

array of Kurdish groups. It has reached out to some of the crazy 

Sunni groups that would happily kill a Shia if they saw one. So 

Iran is almost painfully pragmatic in its willingness to work with 

groups. 

Its influence is strongest, I would say, certainly in the Shia 

areas. Also, it has a lot of local influence along its border. Iran 

looks at Iraq not just as a country but as a series of regions and 

cities and towns, and it tries to buy influence at the local level, as 

well. 

Ms. KELLY. Anyone else? 

Mr. KAGAN. I think that Iran’s influence varies. I think, overall, 

Iran’s influence in Iraq is higher than it has ever been. But it does 

vary, and it is changing, and interesting things are going on, primarily, I would say, because of the degree to which the Iranianbacked militias have effectively shown that they are completely 

independent of the Iraqi political leadership and actually are acting 

just as subordinates of Soleimani. 

And that has had the effect of scaring the Shia political leadership in Iraq about these militias and about what the Iranians are 

actually trying to do. Does it reduce Iranian influence? You know, 

not necessarily. But it has created, I would say, a different atmosphere in which that influence is received. 

And, again, I think, frankly, it is an opportunity for us, because 

Hadi al-Amiri and Muhandis have shown their hands, and they 

have shown Iran’s hand also, much more than they have in the 

past, not in terms of their activities, because they are not doing 

much that is very different from what they have done before, but 

in terms of their posturing. 

And it is interesting to see—Muhandis is a guy who was always 

a shadowy figure, because he was known to be, you know, working 

with the Quds Force and he was known to be running a militia for 

the Iranians, and generally you didn’t see him a whole lot. Recently, he has been very prominent. He has been puffing his chest 

out and making much of himself and making it clear that he is a 

strong fighter. That doesn’t play well with the traditional, established Shia elites and, I think, with a lot of the Iraqi Shia population that is concerned about this. 

So I think the dynamics are not positive for us, but they are complicated in ways that we could, I think, potentially be taking advantage of. 

Ms. KELLY. Thank you. 

I yield back. 

Mr. POE. I thank the gentlelady. 

54

The Chair will now recognize one of our newer members, as well, 

from the State of Illinois, Mr. Zeldin—New York. Sorry. 

Mr. ZELDIN. That is okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

And I appreciate everyone being here for this important hearing. 

Taking a step back and, just generally, as we are watching the 

negotiations taking place between the Obama administration and 

the Iranian Government, I was struck, not too far back in history, 

when the State Department had indicated that they had reached 

a tentative deal, and the Iranian Government literally within 24 

hours was refuting the terms of that agreement. 

So who are we really negotiating—like, playing this out for a second, let’s say over the course of the next month or so the President 

negotiates a deal just to negotiate a deal and it contains foolish 

concessions that can put the Iranian Government within 60, 90 

days of being able to have a nuclear weapon. What is next? 

From a 30,000-foot level, you are watching this unfold. And each 

of you have a lot of experience and background with this. What is 

next? What is the risk? Who are the players? What do we expect 

the Iranian Government to do next? 

For me, personally, I don’t trust them. I wish that, you know, instead of us reducing sanctions we would be increasing sanctions. 

So just—I mean, it is an open question for you. But, you know, 

I have four experts here. I am able to ask this real basic question. 

Where are we going? 

Mr. KAGAN. I think it is a great question, and I think it is a very 

important one. 

You started to ask the question, who are we negotiating with? I 

actually think that is pretty clear. We are negotiating with the Supreme Leader. And there is a lot of, you know, rug-merchant negotiation going on, and the public statements don’t necessarily shape 

me that much in terms of what the ultimate deal is going to look 

like, if there is going to be a deal. Everyone is shaping the environment. 

But what is next? I think that if we have any kind of a deal that 

provides some kind of sanction relief—and I don’t think we can 

have a deal the Iranians would accept that doesn’t provide some 

kind of sanctions relief—I think Iranians will take advantage of 

that to try to stabilize their economy, to put through some economic reforms that they are working on, and to try to modernize 

their economy in a way that will make it more competitive and 

more self-sustaining. 

There are some tensions in this regard, I think, between President Rouhani and Ayatollah Khomeini. Khomeini seems to want to 

drive for sort of autarky to make Iran completely independent from 

the international community so it will never be vulnerable to sanctions again. Rouhani is a better student of economics and seems to 

understand that that is not going to work. 

But, for now, the dispute isn’t very important, because they are 

clearly working on trying to get their economic feet underneath 

them, and any kind of sanctions relief in the first instance they will 

put toward trying to get that under control. 

What will they then do? They will continue to pursue their objectives of driving us out of the region, establishing regional hegemVerDate 0ct 09 2002 16:07 Apr 07, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00058 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_TNT\021115\93283 SHIRL
55

ony, and, of course, in my opinion, maintaining the ability to develop a nuclear weapon at the moment of their choosing. 

Mr. BERMAN. Sir, if I could just add to what Dr. Kagan mentioned, I think the economic metrics are actually very compelling, 

and it is useful to sort of understand what we are looking at. 

In 2012, as a result of U.S. and European sanctions levied on 

Iran, the Iranian economy constricted by roughly 5 percent. In 

2013, it constricted by about 3 percent. Last year, it grew marginally as a result of sanctions relief, and it is on track this year to 

grow by between 11⁄2 and 3 percent. 

What this shows you is that, in the interim, in the year and a 

half that Iran has had greater breathing room, it has used that 

time judiciously to put its economic house in order. It has also, on 

a parallel track, as the State Department has noted, stepped up its 

sponsorship of global instability, as manifested in places like Syria 

and Yemen. 

And so I think there is very much a causal relationship here. 

Terrorism is cheap, but it is not cost-free. The Iranian regime sees 

this as a deep-seated imperative. If it has more money, it is likely 

to invest more in it. I think it is quite as simple as that. 

Mr. ZELDIN. Yeah. 

You know, I see, obviously, the—we all see the economic benefit 

for Iran to be engaging in these negotiations. We see the strategic 

benefit for Iran. The problem is Iran is here and the U.S. here, 

Iran is here, the U.S. is here, Iran stays here, the U.S. is here. 

And, you know, it is like here in American politics we are trying—you know, we have a President who is all politics all the time. 

His only version of compromise is to get it 100 percent his way. 

And now we are oversees with an enemy that does not respect 

weakness, they only respect strength. 

I advocate for a stronger, more consistent foreign policy. We are 

negotiating with an element that is not our friend, who should not 

be trusted. They get these benefits, but they are going to be literally a turnkey away from, you know, having a nuclear weapon. 

They want to wipe Israel off the map. They will continue to be 

state sponsors of terrorism. The economic benefit will drive their 

efforts to be state sponsors of terrorism. 

I am just—I am greatly concerned, and I do not trust that negotiating partner on the other side. And I appreciate the chairman for 

having this hearing to bring some light to it, because I hope that 

something cracks the code to turn the tide. That is why I welcome 

the Prime Minister coming here to address a joint session of Congress. And I hope that we don’t make a deal just to make a deal. 

I yield back. 

Mr. POE. The gentleman yields back his time. 

The Chair now will recognize the gentleman from California, Mr. 

Sherman, for his questions. 

Mr. SHERMAN. I would point out that Reagan negotiated with 

Brezhnev, Roosevelt negotiated with Stalin. And so it is not a fair 

political attack to say Obama must be a bad President because he 

negotiates with Iran. You make peace, or try to make peace, with 

your enemies, not your friends. And, of course, we negotiated with 

North Vietnam as they were killing our troops on the ground. 

56

Whatever deal is reached, or if a deal is reached, with the Iranians is basically a 2-year deal; that is to say, the President will 

use what he sees as his power to waive sanctions for 2 years. 

I have come to listen to my Republican colleagues, and when 

asked what are the chances that their leader, Mr. Boehner, is going 

to bring to the floor the ‘‘Thank God Obama is President and Did 

Such a Great Job of Negotiating a Superb Deal with Iran Act of 

2015’’—and I am asked what the chances of that are, I say, well, 

what are the chances that Julia Roberts calls me this afternoon? 

So it is a 2-year deal, if there is a deal at all, subject then to the 

next Congress and the next President. It is guaranteed to be a poor 

deal because we are not in a position to get a great deal. What are 

our other options? The military option has barely been discussed 

here because it is highly unattractive, especially to the American 

people at this time. 

And so I want to focus a little bit on sanctions. Iran doesn’t just 

want a bomb. Nobody wants a bomb. You want half a dozen bombs. 

You certainly want to test one when you want to start being treated like a nuclear power. 

And so we talk about sanctions. The most successful use of sanctions was against South Africa, which were universally embraced, 

totally multilateral, and took years to be effective. 

So I would ask the panel here, help us draft the additional sanctions act, whether it is of 2015 or 2017—we might as well as start 

now; it is probably 2015. 

But, also, comment on whether there are any sanctions you could 

imagine that wouldn’t just threaten Iran with a mild recession, you 

know, negative-2-percent growth instead of positive-2-percent 

growth. Is there any sanction that you could suggest to us that 

would threaten the regime’s survival in the timeframe it would 

take to create two or three nuclear weapons? 

Dr. Byman? 

Mr. BYMAN. As I am sure you know, Mr. Sherman, sanctions 

don’t work quickly, right? If we look at South Africa as the shining 

example of their success, that was a decade-long process. And——

Mr. SHERMAN. And they didn’t cause, like, rioting in the streets. 

They caused a decision by what ultimately was a government that 

made a rational decision. I mean, we deplore apartheid, but eventually that group—I mean, it was not the Supreme Leader that let 

Mandela out of jail and gave him the Presidency of the country. 

Go on. 

Mr. BYMAN. And the reason sanctions, I think, led Iran to the negotiating table was because they involved a wide array of U.S. Allies and Iranian trading partners and they hit Iran quite deeply. 

And to sustain sanctions and to make them more effective, you 

need that comprehensive approach. And we will only get that if our 

allies believe that we are not eager to reject a deal with Iran. 

And so I don’t think anyone trusts the Iranians. I have heard the 

President say repeatedly he does not trust the Iranians. But if we 

are seen as not negotiating, we will lose allied support, and that 

is bad for sanctions. 

Mr. SHERMAN. I would point out that, unless we are willing to 

do the secondary sanctions approach—which is called for by 

present statute. But to say to Germany, ‘‘You sell one paper clip 

57

to Iran, we are not going to let you send a single Mercedes to the 

United States,’’ I mean, those are fighting words. That is outside 

the pale of our relationship with Europe. But unless we are willing 

to do that, Germany will sell nonlethal materials to Iran in a way 

that helps their economy just as soon as they are convinced that 

the United States is not behaving reasonably. 

And, oh, by the way, if President Obama says we are not behaving reasonably, Congress will not be able to convince them to the 

contrary. Obama may not be popular with everybody in Congress; 

he is considerably more popular in Europe. 

I will go on to the next witness, Mr. Badran. What is the Achilles’ heel that we ought to be aiming at? 

Mr. BADRAN. Well, I am no sanctions expert, but I think the oil 

sector, I think, was one of the areas that people were looking to to 

hit hard. 

Mr. SHERMAN. Clearly, taking Kirk Menendez down to zero is, 

like, first on everybody’s list of——

Mr. BADRAN. Right. 

Mr. SHERMAN [continuing]. Additional sanctions. 

Mr. Berman? 

Mr. BERMAN. If you don’t mind, I would like to amplify a point 

that you made about secondary sanctions on trading partners of 

the United States that also happen to be trading partners of Iran. 

In this particular case, there is no country that looms larger than 

China. China consumes about 60 percent of Iranian total global oil 

exports, and it has ramped up consumption. Since the administration has applied a moratorium on reporting with regard to the 2010 

Comprehensive Iran Sanctions, Accountability, and Divestment 

Act, the Chinese have actually increased their imports of Iranian 

oil, which means that, without Chinese acquiescence to trimming 

Iran’s global economic footprint, it is going to be very difficult to 

really put Iran in a box in a meaningful way. And that means——

Mr. SHERMAN. So we can hurt their economy, but, without China, 

we can’t threaten regime survival. 

Mr. BERMAN. That is right. 

Mr. SHERMAN. And so we would have to have not only the political gumption that it takes to be opposed to Iran, we would need 

to take on Walmart. I don’t know if the people in the room are powerful enough to do that. 

I will go on to Dr. Kagan. 

Mr. KAGAN. Congressman, there is no magic silver bullet that we 

could, you know, pass along a sanction and take down the regime. 

And I wasn’t aware that we were even talking about trying to take 

down the regime. The purpose of the sanctions——

Mr. SHERMAN. Well, in this room, many have said that this regime will hold on to its nuclear program unless it faces a risk to 

regime survival, that if it is just a matter of a bad day on the 

Tehran stock market or a bad year on the Tehran stock market, 

they would willingly pay that price. 

Mr. KAGAN. I would need to think about whether I agree with 

that or disagree with it. But what I would say is that if the discussion is now about how to threaten the regime’s survival, that is a 

very different context from the discussion in which we have been 

talking about sanctions hitherto, which have really been fundamenVerDate 0ct 09 2002 16:07 Apr 07, 2015 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00061 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 F:\WORK\_TNT\021115\93283 SHIRL
58

tally focused on putting enough pressure on the regime to make the 

Supreme Leader change his calculus. And I agree with you that 

that is not going to be easy. 

Mr. SHERMAN. I would just say nobody gives up their firstborn 

just to get a lower ATM fee. 

And I yield back. 

Mr. POE. I thank the gentleman. 

Thank all members of the subcommittee for being here today, 

and especially our witnesses. It has been excellent. 

All of your statements, official statements, will be made part of 

the record. 

And this subcommittee is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 4:15 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.] 

(59)

A P P E N D I X 

MATERIAL SUBMITTED FOR THE RECORD

60

f


93283n.eps
61

Æ


93283m.eps