With Iranian Plots On US Soil Critics Say Nuclear Talks Should Stop

The Justice Department revealed on Wednesday that an operative of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard tried to hire a hitman in the US to kill former National Security Adviser John Bolton.

A statement by DoJ saidShahram Poursafi, also known as Mehdi Rezayi, 45, had attempted to pay “individuals in the United States” $300,000 to carry out the killing, “likely in retaliation for the January 2020 death of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – Qods Force (IRGC-QF) commander Qasem Soleimani.”

Bolton told Iran International Television anchor Fardad Farahzad that he was not surprised as an indictment was unsealed because he was kept informed “in general terms until late in 2021 when it was determined I would again get secret service protection.”

As the news about the assassination plot against Bolton was announced, Axios reported that DOJ also told former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo that he too was one of the former Trump officials targeted by the government of Iran.

After the US targeted killing of Iran’s Qasem Soleimani in January 2020 in Baghdad, Iran’s top leaders have repeatedly threatened revenge against Trump administration officials, including President Donald Trump himself.

Bolton said that he is aware of many ex-officials being the target of possible Iranian plots. “So, it's a very real threat, and obviously we're not doing enough to stop it because it continues,” he said, adding, “I really can't discuss names, but this is something that characterizes the regime in Tehran, and obviously the US has not done enough to deter the regime.”

Critics of the Biden administration say that with this kind behavior by Iran, the United States should stop making deals with Tehran and promising to lift sanctions that would give the Iranian government tens of billions of dollars in cash and economic benefits.

However, Reuters quoted an unnamed US official as saying that Washington does not believe the assassination plots should affect talks with Tehran on reviving the 2015 nuclear deal, known as the JCPOA.

Asked if he thinks the issue of Iranian threats to US citizens should be raised in the JCPOA talks, Bolton said, “I think that was really part of the fundamental flaw of the 2015 nuclear deal, the idea that the Ayatollah Khamenei had two brains: one brain was the nuclear brain, the other brain was the terrorist brain. He doesn't. It's all part and parcel of the same thing. So fundamentally the nuclear deal was not going to deal with the terrorist issue.”

Bolton went on to say that “In fact, what we see now is that this regime has no intention whatever to comply with any commitments that it makes. It's untrustworthy, it's clearly an enemy of the US. That's what these threats of assassination show.”

Asked if from the benefit of hindsight, he would still support Soleimani’s killing, the former national security adviser said, “Soleimani was a terrorist,” and argued that the Islamic Republic has been threatening and killing Americans since its establishment in 1979, not just after Soleimani’s killing.

“So yes, their threat has been growing, but it's been growing for a long period of time. This is a dangerous, untrustworthy regime.”

A statement from the US Justice Department alleged Shahram Poursafi, also known as Mehdi Rezayi, 45, had attempted to pay “individuals in the United States” $300,000 to carry out the killing, “likely in retaliation for the January 2020 death of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – Qods Force (IRGC-QF) commander Qasem Soleimani.”

Bolton was National Security Advisor April 2018-September 2019 and was not in the post when President Donald Trump authorized the drone strike in Baghdad in which Soleimani and nine others died. The United Nations special rapporteur judged Soleimani’s death “unlawful killing.”

The Justice Department statement cited court documents suggesting Poursafi launched a plan to kill Bolton, either in Washington, the District of Columbia, or Maryland in October 2021 by asking an unnamed individual – whom he met online – to take photographs of Bolton, ostensibly for a book Poursafi was writing. The individual concerned introduced Poursafi to a second person whom he offered $250,000, later increased to $300,00, to eliminate the ex-presidential advisor.

This second person, identified by the Justice Department statement as a “source” for the criminal investigation, was told by Poursafi there was an additional “job” for which he would be paid $1 million. During communications, the statement said, the source referred several times to Poursafi being “associated with IRGC-QF,” which it said Poursafi never denied.

According to the statement, Poursafi then provided the source with Bolton’s work address. The statement did not explain why the alleged plot, which was investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Washington Field Office, was never carried out, nor whether Poursafi had conducted the whole scheme virtually without even entering the US.

Poursafi ‘at large abroad’

“If convicted, Poursafi faces up to 10 years imprisonment and a fine up to $250,000 for the use of interstate commerce facilities in the commission of murder for hire, and up to 15 years imprisonment and a fine up to $250,000 for providing and attempting to provide material support to a transnational murder plot,” the Justice Department statement noted. It added that Pousafi “remains at large abroad.”

The Washington Examiner in March alleged that the Biden administration had blocked the Justice Department from taking action over an Iranian plot to kill Bolton in order not to derail Vienna talks aimed at reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, the JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action). The State Department January informed Congress there was a “specific threat” from Iran against Brian Hook, Trump’s special Iran envoy at the time Soleimani was killed.

Earlier this month, women’s rights activist Masih Alinejad was told by the FBI that a man arrested near her Brooklyn home with an assault rifle had been sent by Iran to kill her. Alinejad, who became a successful author and doyen of US-funded media since leaving Iran 2009, was the target last year of a kidnap plot that remains a live criminal case with defendant Niloufar Bahadorifar still to face court after her arrest in July 2021.

Iranian Navy's deputy head of operations, Rear Admiral Mostafa Tajeddini, said the escort flotilla of the army's naval unit, led by the Jamaran destroyer, responded to a distress call from an Iranian ship in the Red Sea, and fended off the attacking boats after a heavy exchange of fire. 

“Thanks to the effective [naval] presence and after heavy exchanges, the attacking boats made off,” the senior commander noted, but stopped short of providing details of the ship that was targeted or the forces that launched the overnight attack.

In November 2021, Iran said pirates attempted to seize an Iranian oil tanker in the Gulf of Aden, two weeks after an Iranian warship repelled an attack by pirates against two oil tankers that it was escorting in the Gulf of Aden.

Iran stepped up its naval presence in the Gulf of Aden after a wave of attacks by Somalia-based pirates between 2000 and 2011 to increase security of its ships through the Red Sea and Suez Canal. 

In July, Iran-backed Houthis of Yemen said Sana’a will not allow the Red Sea to become an “Israeli lake,” noting that Yemen has the final say in the Bab al-Mandab strait and will “preserve the Arab identity of the Red Sea in the face of the US conspiracy to turn it into a Zionist lake." 

Israel’s defense minister Benny Gantz said earlier in July that Iran is expanding its aggressive operations in the region in general, and in the naval arena in particular.

Anonymous sources told Hebrew media on Tuesday that Israel is convinced Tehran will not accept the latest text Western negotiators have agreed upon as diplomats returned home from Vienna following the most recent round of talks. 

According to Haaretz, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei will block the move as Europe’s recent confidence in renewed confidence in the talks is just ‘manufactured optimism’ designed to pressure Tehran. 

“There was momentary optimism, but very quickly it turned out to be contrived optimism meant to pressure the Iranians into making a decision, hopefully accepting the text as it was presented,” the officials said.

“There wasn’t any strategic shift in terms of the Iranians. They don’t want to accept this agreement, and they will struggle to accept anything that isn’t a significant improvement of the original nuclear deal,” one Israeli official argued. 

The new text includes guarantees that foreign companies will be able to invest in Iran or operate there once sanctions are lifted, without fearing the repercussions of any party withdrawing from the deal, as the United States did in 2018 under President Donald Trump, but Tehran demanded more drastic concessions outside the scope of the original agreement, including over an International Atomic Energy Agency probe into undeclared nuclear material found in the country.

Since the announcement of the impending satellite launch, Iranian officials were trumpeting it as their satellite, symbolizing their scientific achievement, but after it was sent into orbit the Russian embassy put out a statement on Instagram saying its companies had built and launched it.

The Islamic Republic, which has openly supported Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, has also been trumpeting the importance of strategic and military ties with Moscow. US officials have been warning since mid-July that Russia is preparing to buy military drones from Iran to use in the war. Iranian officials never clearly denied the accusation.

CNN reported on Wednesday that US officials believe Russians are training in Iran to familiarize themselves with the Iranian drones. This is the second time US officials speak to the media about Russian personnel being in Iran either to review or train on the drones. US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said in mid-July that Russian officers visited a drone base in Iran’s Kashan, hinting at possible training for operating the drones.

The director of US Central Intelligence Agency, William Burns also said in July, “It’s true that the Russians are reaching out to the Iranians to try to acquire armed drones,” Bloomberg reported.

An adviser to the Ukrainian president told Iran International on July 25 that it won’t be a surprise is Tehran provides military drones to Moscow.

“We have to view it in that perspective that Iran and Russia are allies in this conflict. In Ukraine, we obviously have no illusions about this. So, we are obviously very aware of what's going on, and we're going to be very careful about our relationship with Iran and what we hear from Iranian authorities when it comes to Ukraine,” Alexander Rodnyansky told Iran International.

An unconfirmed report quoting a Kyiv official last week said that Russia was already using Iranian drones in Ukraine.

US–based think tank Institute for the Study of War quoted an advisor to the Ukrainian President’s Office, Oleksiy Arestovych, as saying on Friday that Iran handed 46 drones over to Russia and that the Ukrainian government has already noted the use of these drones in combat in Ukraine.

Another embarrassing aspect of the satellite deal were media reports last week that Russia will control the Iranian satellite for a while and possibly use it for the war in Ukraine. Iranian officials responded to this on August 7, categorically stating that they will be in full control from Iran.

Many politicians and former officials who are loyal to the Islamic Republic have repeatedly warned in recent months not to tilt the country’s foreign policy toward Russia and China and try to resolve Iran’s nuclear dispute with the West. But the hardliners in Tehran have so far rejected this advice, refusing to accept a compromise deal worked out with European Union mediation in Vienna after 16 months of negotiations.