Editorial | Iran has expanded its plans from the Middle East to the US

Iran is looking for big trouble, but so far hasn’t found it.

The intrigues in the Middle East are not limited to the ongoing war between Israel and the military entities known as Hamas and Hezbollah.

There is another lesser-known but astonishing venture underway: Iran’s plans to assassinate former members of the US government.

News reports indicate that Iran is engaged in ongoing attempts to assassinate former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Brian Hook, the former US envoy to Iran.

The news comes on the heels of the State Department’s latest notification to congressional leaders that the two are facing what was described as a “serious and credible threat” from a foreign nation identified as Iran.

This is not the first time this kind of news has become public. John Bolton, who briefly served as former President Donald Trump’s national security adviser, has been receiving official protection since US officials learned that Bolton is also on Iran’s hit list.

Iran’s efforts come as a reward for a 2020 U.S. military strike that killed Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force, an Iranian military unit responsible for extraterritorial and clandestine military operations.

Soleimani is widely regarded as a power broker in Iran and was very close to Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei. Soleimani was widely believed to be the driving force behind military attacks that killed American soldiers. He was designated a terrorist by the US in 2005 and was an international outlaw for a long time.

Iran has enormous revenge ambitions, including plots to assassinate Trump as part of an effort to destabilize the United States.

This is not news to members of Congress. The Washington Free Beacon reports that it is “the 20th time since January 2021 that Congress has been notified of credible threats against Hook, a key architect of the Trump administration’s tough sanctions campaign against Iran. For Pompeo, this is the seventeenth time that Congress has been notified of similar threats.”

There is even a manhunt underway. The FBI is looking for an Iranian agent identified as Majid Dastjani Farahan. He would recruit agents to carry out the murderous operation.

No one familiar with the Middle East will be surprised to hear of Iran’s plan. It is and remains a major obstacle to peace in the region, especially when it comes to support for Hamas and Hezbollah.

It’s okay to talk about a ceasefire and peace talks. But any agreement must be based on the credibility of the parties to the negotiations.

The circumstances indicate that Iran means business, but is in no way related to peaceful solutions to the serious problems in the region.