Symposium: Hitting Iran?

By Jamie Glazov

Michael A. Ledeen, a resident scholar at the American Enterprises Institute and a contributor to The Wall Street Journal. He is the author of Machiavelli on Modern Leadership and Tocqueville on American Character. His new book is The Iranian Time Bomb: The Mullah Zealots' Quest for Destruction.Is it high time for a pre-emptive strike against Iran’s nuclearfacilities? A distinguished panel has joined us today to discuss this issue. Our guests are:

Rohan Gunaratna, the author of Inside Al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror. He is Head of the International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies in Singapore.

Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney, the co-author with Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely of Endgame: The Blueprint for Victory in the War on Terror. He is a retired Air Force Fighter Pilot who has been a Fox News Military Analyst for the last four and a half years and continues to appear regularly on Fox.

Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa, the highest ranking intelligence official ever to have defected from the Soviet bloc. In 1989, Romania's president Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife were executed at the end of a trial where most of the accusations had come word-for-word out of Pacepa's book, Red Horizons, republished in 27 countries. Pacepa's newest book is Programmed to Kill: Lee Harvey Oswald, the Soviet KGB, and the Kennedy Assassination.

Steve Schippert, co-founder of the Center for Threat Awareness and managing editor for ThreatsWatch.org.

and

Thomas Joscelyn, an expert on the international terrorist network. He has written extensively on al Qaeda and its allies, including Iran. He is the author, most recently, of Iran’s Proxy War Against America, a booklet published by the Claremont Institute and available for download at its web site. (Click here to download the booklet.)

FP: Steve Schippert, Thomas Joscelyn, Michael A. Ledeen, Rohan Gunaratna, Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney and Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa, welcome to Frontpage Symposium.

Rohan Gunaratna, let’s begin with you. The evidence suggests that negotiations with Tehran have failed and that there is no alternative but for the U.S. to launch a pre-emptive strike on Iran's nuclear facilities.

Do you concur?

Gunaratna: Attacking Iran will be much more devastating for the United States than attacking Iraq.

Iran will retaliate with strikes against US targets both in the US mainland and overseas. Furthermore, Iran is next door to Afghanistan and to Iraq, the two most important theatres of conflict for the US and the West.

Iran is holding over 100 Al Qaeda leaders, members and their families in detention. This includes Saif al Adel, head of security and intelligence, Abu Hafs al Mauritani, head of the fatwa committee, Abdel Aziz al Masri, head of WMD committee, and Abu Mohamed al Masri, the head of the training committee and other prominent and capable leaders. This includes Saad bin Laden, the son of Osama and two of his wives and other significant figures very close to the Al Qaeda leader such as Abu Khyer al Masri, Al Qaeda's key negotiator with Iran. The quality of Al Qaeda members in detention in Iran is much higher than those operating in FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas that run along the Pakistan-Afghan border). Iran is likely to release these leaders, members and family members with arms, explosives and finances to strike the US and its Allies.

The US must refrain from over-reacting. There are many methods to subdue an adversary without attacking him.

FP: Thank you Dr. Gunaratna. I just want to follow up with you for a moment and hopefully you can crystallize a few things.

Scholars such as Thomas Joscelyn have documented that Iran has been waging war on us for a long time and part of this war has involved Iran’s cooperation with Al Qaeda. Why is Iran holding Al Qaeda leaders in detention when Al Qaeda serves the interests of Iran in terms of doing damage to the “Great Satan”? And if Iran could hurt the U.S. by exploiting these leaders and releasing them etc., surely it would have already done so, no? If not, why hasn't it done so?

More than anything else, what sense does it make for us not to provoke a country that has long ago declared war on us and that is hurting us, and is also planning to hurt us more – and God knows in what horrible way?

Gunaratna: Yes, Iran has been working against the U.S.

However, since the rise of the Taliban in 1996, Iran has not sponsored Al Qaeda and its associated groups. Iran has sponsored Shia groups - Lebanese Hezbollah globally and Jaysh-e- Madhi in Iraq - and the Sunni Palestianian groups - Hamas, PIJ, Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade.

Iranian intelligence services - MOIS and IRGC - are anti-US.

We have seen no evidence of direct Iranian sponsorship of Al Qaeda or its associated groups. Iran is fully aware of the dangers of supporting Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda in Iraq. Both these groups may one day attack Iran and its interests.

FP: Thomas Joscelyn, what do you make of Dr. Gunaratna’s take on hitting Iran in general and on Iran and Al Qaeda in particular?

Joscelyn: I have great respect for Dr. Gunaratna’s work and I think that his book Inside Al Qaeda is one of the best books written about al Qaeda, despite a few areas where I disagree with his analysis. In terms of understanding how al Qaeda was structured prior to 9/11 and how the terror network operates, Dr. Gunaratna’s work has been invaluable.

However, I am more than a little puzzled by his claim that “since the rise of the Taliban in 1996, Iran has not sponsored Al Qaeda and its associated groups.” Rohan himself wrote in Inside Al Qaeda: “Iran received nearly 10 percent of Osama’s outgoing calls from Afghanistan from mid-1996 to 1998, suggesting that Iran was maintaining a relationship with Al Qaeda even after he developed close ties with the Taliban in Afghanistan, a regime unfriendly toward Tehran.” Indeed, the 9/11 Commission reached the same conclusion, noting: “Intelligence indicates the persistence of contacts between Iranian security officials and senior al Qaeda figures after Bin Laden’s return to Afghanistan [in 1996].”

The 9/11 Commission noted that there is evidence that al Qaeda may have played a junior role in Hezbollah’s and Iran’s bombing of the Khober Towers complex in Saudi Arabia in June 1996. In Gerald Posner’s Why America Slept, we learn that just days before the Khober Towers attack, Tehran hosted a summit of international terrorists, including key al Qaeda figures. According to Posner’s well-placed source, the CIA received reporting on what went on during the terror conference and learned that al Qaeda, Hezbollah and Iran agreed to step up attacks against American targets throughout the Middle

East. In See No Evil, Bob Baer tells us that the CIA learned how Hezbollah’s and Iran’s master terrorist, Imad Mugniyah, had been in contact with al Qaeda’s Egyptian ally, the Islamic Group, in 1996. Baer further explains that prior to leaving the CIA in 1997, he and his colleagues had learned that Bin Laden approached the Iranians about putting aside their conflict with central Asian governments such as the Taliban in order to focus strictly on working against the Americans. The Iranians and the Taliban remained at each others’ throats, of course, but this did not stop al Qaeda and Iran from continuing to work together.

Iran and Hezbollah definitely played a large role in al Qaeda’s August 7, 1998, bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The attacks were modeled after Hezbollah’s most successful simultaneous suicide bombings of American targets in Lebanon in 1983. Indeed, as Dr. Gunaratna correctly notes in Inside Al Qaeda, and as was explained by two al Qaeda terrorists who testified during the trial of some of the terrorists responsible for the embassy bombings, and as was noted by the 9/11 Commission, at least some of the al Qaeda terrorists responsible for the bombings were trained for the operation in Hezbollah’s camps. Dr. Gunaratna writes in Inside Al Qaeda: “In addition to developing this capability [to attack targets simultaneously with suicide bombers] with Iranian assistance, Al Qaeda also received a large amount of explosives from Iran that were used in the bombing of the East African targets [the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania].” A senior U.S. Intelligence official has confirmed Gunaratna’s claim for me. The U.S. Intelligence Community did, in fact, receive reporting that Iran had provided al Qaeda with explosives used in the attack. Following the U.S. led invasion of Afghanistan, Iran gave safe haven to Saif al-Adel, one of the senior al Qaeda terrorists wanted for his involvement in the embassy bombings and a number of other attacks. According to one of his fellow al Qaeda terrorists, al-Adel was one of the bin Laden operatives who received Hezbollah’s training for the embassy bombings.

The aforementioned training did take place, by and large, in the early 1990’s. That is, the training took place prior to 1996. But there are plenty of other threads of evidence connecting Iran to al Qaeda’s terror right through the present. The 9/11 Commission even left open the possibility that Iran and Hezbollah gave al Qaeda a helping hand in the September 11 attacks. The 9/11 Commission called for a further investigation into this matter, but more than three years later no such investigation has been launched.

There is extensive evidence that Iran helped al Qaeda and Taliban operatives flee Afghanistan in late 2001. At least several well-sourced press reports have noted the convoys of al Qaeda and Taliban operatives who fled across the Iranian border in order to escape American justice. Even Richard Clarke noted in his book Against All Enemies: “There is, of course, evidence that Iran provided al Qaeda safe haven before and after September 11.” And the al Qaeda operatives living in Iran post-9/11 have remained active. Intelligence officials have tied some of the more senior terrorists in their ranks to attacks in Tunisia, Morocco, and Saudi Arabia, among other locations.

This is just some of the evidence available regarding Iran’s ongoing support for al Qaeda. It did not end in 1996. The evidence indicates quite the opposite, in fact.

I also disagree with Dr. Gunaratna’s suggestion that “Iran is holding over 100 Al Qaeda leaders, members and their families in detention.” It is true that the al Qaeda terrorists are there, but I disagree with the notion that they are under any meaningful form of “detention.” Saif al-Adel, the senior al Qaeda terrorist wanted for his role in the embassy bombings and who is currently in Iran, has been working with the Iranians since the early 1990’s. He and his fellow terrorists are housed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which has had an active relationship with al Qaeda since bin Laden’s days in Sudan. In my view, al Qaeda’s safe haven in Iran is just an extension of their long-standing relationship.

As I noted above, the al Qaeda terrorists living in Iran have been tied to plots around the globe from their post-9/11 Iranian safe haven. As George Tenet reports in At the Center of the Storm, the CIA learned that the al Qaeda operatives living in Iran even discussed the acquisition of WMD with fellow terrorists outside of the country from their Iranian abode. If they were really “detained,” would they be allowed to have such discussions? I don’t think so.

Dr. Gunaratna says that “Iran is fully aware of the dangers of supporting Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda in Iraq. Both these groups may one day attack Iran and its interests.” Maybe al Qaeda will one day turn against its Iranian ally. But this hasn’t stopped them from working together in the meantime. Al Qaeda in Iraq did supposedly threaten Iran recently, but I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting for al Qaeda to strike the Iranians. My reading of the situation is that al Qaeda was simply angered that Iran was supporting both al Qaeda and some of its enemies in Iraq and, therefore, decided to lash out. This “threat” may also have been just some propaganda ploy and it is inconsistent with much of al Qaeda’s previous rhetoric concerning Iran.

In addition, as the Germans and the Italians found, the former leader of al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, reestablished his network in late 2001 from Iranian soil. The IRGC provided him with protection despite the fact that he was rabidly anti-Shiite. If Iran was willing to work with Zarqawi, then they are willing to work with anyone against the U.S.

I’ve gone on too long. But, my point is that there is abundant evidence of Iran’s ongoing support for al Qaeda. It didn’t end in 1996. And we need a game plan for countering this relationship. Like Gunaratna, I am skeptical about the efficacy of air strikes or any military action against Iran. Like Michael Ledeen, I believe that our best bet has been the Iranian people. But, I’d like to hear what others have to say about what to do about Iran.

FP: Our best bet might be the Iranian people and a revolution that they may succeed in carrying out. The problem is: what if that revolution doesn’t happen and Iran gets the bomb? Can we really be sitting around and waiting for the Iranian people to overthrow their dictators while the Mullahs get their hands on a nuclear device and use it – or give it to others to use?

Michael Ledeen?

Ledeen: First of all, Jamie, hats off to you for assembling such a fine group. I am an admirer of everyone here. As you know, I am totally with Tom Joscelyn on the Iran-al Qaeda relationship. I think all you have to do is to read the last few months' reports from the American military in Iraq to see that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps has been all over the place, supporting every terrorist organization, whether Sunni or Shi'ite. That most certainly includes AQ. As I keep pointing out, Zarqawi operated for some years from Tehran--fully documented in open court transcripts from both Germany and Italy. He was the top AQ man in Iraq for a while. I don't believe the Iranians were practicing benign neglect; I think they were active sponsors of his, and of the organization.

I agree with Dr. Gunaratna and Tom, that bombing Iran would not be a happy event. Indeed, I think it would demonstrate the failure of Western policy across the board. But I fear we are headed in that direction, since nobody has the stomach or the will to support democratic revolution in Iran. So one day we will face the awful choice neatly put by Sarkozy and Kouchner: Iran with the bomb, or bomb Iran. Ugh.

Schippert: Just one simple question in response to the calls to strike Iran's nuclear facilities and the above discourse regarding whether or not Iran assists al-Qaeda, if you please:

Regardless of whether or not Iran cooperates with al-Qaeda, why do we dance around the bush fretting over the Iranian nuclear program while they have training camps that are pumping out trained terrorists by the hundreds for the burgeoning Iraqi Hizballah? Iran continues to ramp up (not halt) their supply of EFP armor-penetrating roadside bombs that continue to kill our troops.

No less than 300 American troops are dead today because of the EFP's alone - employed by those trained in Iranian camps. That's nearly 10% of all our casualties in Iraq. 10%. From just one of the weapons supplied by Iran and employed by those whom they have trained, armed and funded. And the number grows. Have we forgotten the camp in Iran that was a Karbala compound mock-up used for training before the Quds Force Karbala operation that killed 5 American soldiers - four of them found executed on the side of a road after their abduction?

Perhaps we begin by reducing those Iranian training camps to dust. I fail to see how an endeavor such as thisnot be considered such. But those training camps are a direct source of some of our own losses in a war that Iran continues to press.

If one wants to fret over a nuclear crisis, consider first al-Qaeda's insurgency in Pakistan, where in and around Mir Ali in North Waziristan, al-Qaeda has just smacked down the combined forces of the Frontier Corps and the Pakistani Army, including its armor with RPG-29's (not coincidentally Hizballah's weapon of choice for killing IDF Merkava tanks in Lebanon last summer) and its helicopter gunships with surface-to-air missile barrages. And Musharraf is today suing for peace once again with bin Laden's minions who seek to topple Islamabad and control their nuclear weapons.

Without dismissing it in the least as unimportant, it should be acknowledged that the Iranian nuclear program - one which, rest assured, is intent on nuclear weapons production - has yet to field more than bluster and international interference for the regime's concurrent aims and deeds. Perhaps we can deal with those deeds first.

Of course, as Michael rightly points out, we could have simply supported the Iranian people long ago (or even now). I'll bet we didn't do that either lest we'd have angered the Iranian regime into attacking us. That worked out rather well.

Apologies for such directness, but it is simply frustrating to watch. would be over-reacting. Attacking the Iranian nuclear money pit at this point might be over-reacting, as Dr. Gunaratna stated, though I'd like to see suggested when attacking these facilities would

FP: No apologies necessary here at Frontpage, we like directness and especially your directness Steve Schippert.

Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney, what do you make of the discussion?

McInerney: Jamie as usual a great group.

Well I must agree with John Bolton although I would like to let the Iranian people take their country back but we apparently do not want to take the appropriate actions. I agree violently with Michael, Tom and Steve but have some serious concerns with Dr Gunaratna’s comments. However Tom covered them far better than I, so I will not say any more.

On the 26th of Oct 2005, President Ahmadinejad said "God willing, soon there will be a world without the Americans and the Zionists”. Several months later his favorite Imam said that Iran was authorized to use nuclear weapons against its enemies even though they don’t have them (we think).

Now it is very clear to me that this is an entirely different threat than we have ever faced before and must act accordingly. His belief that the 12th Imam will come out of the well in Quom will encourage him to aid proxies to plant nuclear weapons in US and European cities once he has them. Old fashion deterrence does not work with terrorists.

Today with Western economic and covert assistance, the Iranian people can remove the current leadership and take their country back. It won’t be nice but they will be out of the WMD business like Iraq is today. If we continue to let Russia and China be enablers, we will have to kick off the covert action by a very short (48 hours) massive (2500 aim points) air campaign aimed at their nuclear facilities, Air Defense, Navy, Air Force, Shahab 3s and Command and Control. The Iranian people would be told that the military was the target and not the people who we would assist in helping them take their country back. We must have a massive Information Operations campaign to support this action. Now I can lay out the details of this air campaign later but suffice it to say that the IAF recently conducted a very successful air strike in Syria without Stealth aircraft and the numbers we possess. I would rather not do it but it may be our last ditch maneuver.

I am not worried about the Iranian retaliation because their leadership and military will be in a survival mode with chaos around them. Just as the Arab Street did not rise up when we did OEF and OIF, they will not during this action because it will be dominated by the Iranian people’s desires for freedom. Tyrants understand when we go for the juggler. If Syria and Hezbollah carry out offensive operations they will be crushed even though there may be a lot of causalities on both sides like TET. This fight is a better solution than nuclear weapons in our cities. We are either in denial or hope nothing will happen and neither is a strategy. This is an existential threat and appeasement like WWII will only get us 200 million killed versus the 60 million in WWII.

FP: Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa?

Pacepa: I enjoy it, Jamie -- you’ve put together a colorful discussion group and tossed us a hot subject. It’s not just Iran’s support of al-Qaeda terrorists that makes it worrisome. President Putin’s recent visit to Teheran is even more disturbing. Last June he announced a new Cold War against the West, and a Moscow-Tehran-Damascus-Pyongyang axis could transform that Cold War into a hot one. Time is no longer our ally.

If over the years America’s leaders would have listened to Michael Ledeen’s insistent appeals to fight the mullahs with ideological weapons and covert actions, Iran might be a U.S. ally by now—just as my formerly communist Romania is. Unfortunately, we missed that boat.

The hope that the United Nations or anyone else can now reform Ahmadinejad is futile. In my other life, at the top of the Soviet bloc, I was national security adviser to another fanatical dictator who dreamed to transform his country into a monument to himself with money obtained from selling nuclear weapons to terrorist states, and I know for a fact that nothing could have changed his mind. Two American presidents went to Bucharest to tame Ceausescu, but those visits only tarnished America’s prestige--the tyrant was eventually executed for genocide.

In spite of America’s enormous military power, a war against Iran is not in our interest. The Vietnam War was successfully used by Moscow and its leftist friends around the world to damage the U.S. foreign policy consensus, poison our domestic debate, and build a credibility gap between America and European public opinion that is still wide and deep. The war in Iraq gave a boost to the leftist leaders in the U.S. Congress, who are now doing their best to re-distribute America’s wealth and transform our country into a kind of 21^st-century socialist republic. A war against Iran would give them a strong advantage.

The only realistic solution, in my view, is to destroy Ahmadinejad’s nuclear facilities and annihilate his Pretorian guards in a McInerney-style 48-hour surgical air strike, and to let the Iranian people deal with him—just as the Romanians dealt with Ceausescu. An Iranian government in exile, supported by the U.S., and a modern day Marshal Plan for Iran would certainly transform that country into an attractive model for the whole Islamic world.

Gunaratna: Let me try to explain point by point:

1. AQ leaders including Sayf al-Adel may indeed not be held under the most stringent conditions in Iran, but there are NO indications that they have been involved in terrorist planning since they were imprisoned in May-June 2003. Sayf al-Adel communication with al-Qaida leaders in Saudi-Arabia in the spring of 2003, occurred prior to his detention.

2. There are no indications that the Iranian government provided the explosives for the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassies in East Africa. The main charges of both bombs were indeed homemade IEDs.

3. There are NO indication that the Iranian government has supplied EFPs to al-Qaida in Iraq or Afghanistan. To shia groups in Iraq, yes.

4. There are no indications that the RPG-29 has been used in FATA.

5. There is no confirmed information that the Iranian government has ever supported al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI). The Iranians may at one time have offered support to Jamat Tawhid wal Jihad (which later became AQI), in return for them stopping their attacks on Shiite holy places in Iraq, but that was refused by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. During 2006 the Iranians also arrested the head of al-Qaida in Iraqs, Iran branch. He is still detained.

6. The Iranians seem to be maintaining their 100plus TOP AQ detainees as a bargaining chip. While some of the kurdish Jihadis, that the Iranians have captured, have been released, and send back into Iraq, the Iranians have constantly increased the amount of AQ detainees in their possession. As stated previously; these detains are not tortured or otherwise kept in tough confinement, but they are not allowed to participate in AQ planning and the AQ organisation today does not include any of their detained members in Iranian jails.

7. There are no indications that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was supported by the Iranian government in 2001-2. It is correct that the Iranian Government allowed Jihadis to transit Iran, but that agreement ended in early 2002. Subsequently Jihadis were detained. The Jihadis, who came from countries with whom Iran had good relations were extradited back to their home countries (Iran provided a list to the U.N. with naming almost 150 jihadis, who had been extradited from Iran to their home countries), while other Jihadis were expelled to countries of their own choosing. However if these expelled Jihadis returned to Iran they were permanently incarcerated. During 2002 Abu Musab al-Zarqawi often cited his fear of being under observation by the Iranian authorities (ref ICPVTR Database Singapore) and Zarqawi was indeed arrested in the spring of 2003. However in accordance with the Iranian policy at the time he (along with many other Jihadis) were expelled to a country of their choseing, by the Iranian authorities. In Abu Musab al-Zarqawis case this was Iraq. His borther-in-law, Khalid Mustafa Aruri returned to Iran, was arrested and has been incarcerated since. Abu Musab al-Zarqawis family was also detained by the Iranians in 2002 and extradited to Jordan.

In my new book with Michael Chandler, the former Chairman UN Monitoring Group into Al Qaeda, Taliban and their entities titled Countering Terrorism - Can We Meet the Threat of Global Violence? I have explained some of these aspects.

Joscelyn: I continue to be puzzled by Rohan’s comments – so much so that I have to wonder if the same person who wrote Inside Al Qaeda is participating in this symposium. I have not read his new book, which he mentions at the end of his last response. But if he makes the same arguments he is making here, then I seriously doubt he can provide good explanations for his about-face.

First, I note that he does not defend himself in his reply concerning Iran’s ties to al Qaeda post-1996. In his book Inside Al Qaeda, he notes that these ties did not cease following al Qaeda’s relocation from the Sudan to Afghanistan. In this symposium he, at first, tried to argue the opposite. I pointed out what he once believed and wrote, which was consistent with what the 9/11 Commission and others have found. And he has not offered any real defense. Therefore, he has provided no real basis for his new claim that the ties were severed post-1996.

Second, before I address some of his claims in his latest response, readers should note just how different what Rohan is saying here is from his previous writings. For example, see pages 194 to 199 of the June 2003 paperback edition of Inside Al Qaeda. Or, readers can read for themselves what Rohan has said in previous interviews online.

Here is what Rohan told the Jerusalem Post in September of 2006: “Iran hosts a number of highly capable Al Qaeda leaders -- Saif Al Adel, the head of security and intelligence; Abu Mohomed al Masri, head of training; Abdul Aziz al Masri, head of weapons of mass destruction, and Suleiman Abu Gaith, head of media. The quality of the Al Qaeda leaders in Iran is much higher than those operating on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.” And: “Despite justifying the attacks on the Shia population [of Iraq] for collaborating with the coalition in Iraq, Al Qaeda has commented positively on the rise of Hezbollah in Lebanon and the growing Iranian influence.”

A piece from Voice of America in February 2006 summed up Rohan’s views thusly (emphasis added): “Gunaratna says after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, most al-Qaida members fled to Pakistan and Iran. He says about 100 al-Qaida members and their families, including four sons and two wives of Osama bin Laden, are currently in Iran. Gunaratna says the porous nature of many borders in the Middle East, and a common cause, has encouraged terrorist groups to cooperate with each other.”

A January 2004 piece in the Associated Press concluded this way: “If left unchecked, Iran could emerge as a training ground for al-Qaeda terrorists, Gunaratna predicted.”

And in September 2002, Rohan gave an interview in which he said: “Al-Qaida evolved from a guerrilla organization that fought the largest land army in the world, the Soviet Army, in Afghanistan. Al-Qaida evolved from being a guerrilla organization into a terrorist organization after it came into contact with Hezbollah, an Iranian-sponsored Lebanese terrorist organization. And what we are seeing is that when al-Qaida was headquartered in Khartoum, Sudan, from 1991 till May 1996, al-Qaida had very close links with Iran. And in fact, after Osama returned to Afghanistan, 20 percent of his phone calls went to Lebanon and to Iran, once again reflecting the close relationship with Iran and with the Lebanese Hezbollah, which is an appendage of Iran.”

Is any of this consistent with what Rohan is saying in this symposium? No. I do not know why Rohan’s views have changed so drastically. I’ll leave it to readers to determine whether or not his opinions here should be taken with a large grain of salt.

Third, I’d like to quickly address some of the specific points Rohan makes above.

In #1, Rohan discusses Saif al-Adel and other al Qaeda leaders on Iranian soil. Rohan says there are “NO indications that they have been involved in terrorist planning since they were imprisoned in May-June 2003.” That’s not true. They have not been as active in directing plots against the West, I would argue, as their brethren in northern Pakistan, but they have been tied to ongoing terrorist activities. As Dan Darling, quoting Spain’s premier terrorism judge, noted in a piece last year, there is evidence that the al Qaeda agents in Iran act like a “board of managers” who are “more involved in coordinating operations than in issuing orders.” There’s much more.

In #2, Rohan is now saying that there is no evidence that Iran provided al Qaeda with explosives used in the August 7, 1998, embassy bombings. I actually first came across the opposite claim - that Iran did provide al Qaeda with explosives used in the attack - in Rohan’s book, Inside Al Qaeda (June 2003 paperback edition, p. 195): “In addition to developing this capability [to strike multiple targets simultaneously] with Iranian assistance, Al Qaeda also received a large amount of explosives from Iran that were used in the bombing of the East African targets.” (emphasis added) What Rohan is saying now directly contradicts his earlier testimony.

I checked into Rohan’s claim when I first read it and found supporting evidence, but I should note that this is not the most important point when it comes to the August 7, 1998, embassy bombings. There are at least several places I can think of where al Qaeda could get the type of explosives used in the embassy bombings (e.g. illicit arms markets, other rogue states), but there weren’t many places they could go to learn how to do it. That attack was modeled after Hezbollah’s most successful operations (e.g. the simultaneous bombings of the Marine barracks and French paratroopers’ headquarters in Lebanon in October 1983). In fact, bin Laden reached out to Hezbollah and Iran for assistance in executing that type of attack, and Hezbollah trained at least some of the operatives responsible. This has all been confirmed by the 9/11 Commission report, the Clinton administration in its indictment of al Qaeda for the embassy bombings, and the testimony of al Qaeda terrorists at the trial of some of those responsible for the attack. Nothing Rohan or anyone else says can change those facts.

In #’s 5 and 7, Rohan casts doubt on the possibility that Iran could have ever cooperated with al Qaeda in Iraq and its deceased leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. He claims there is “no confirmed information” or “no indications” that Iran provided AQI with any assistance. This is also wrong. I won’t get into all of the evidence here, but I will cite one example. I find the dossier compiled by German intelligence and leaked to the magazine Cicero to be a very damning summary of the evidence showing that the Iranians provided Zarqawi with vital safe haven in late 2001 and early 2002. After all, the Germans even knew the phone numbers of Zarqawi’s IRGC safe houses. Rohan cites some evidence that Zarqawi’s family members were detained and deported, but Zarqawi himself was not, now was he? No, he was safely protected until departing for Saddam’s Iraq. If the Iranians really wanted to help and really wanted to hold Zarqawi accountable, then why wasn’t he deported to Jordan – where he would have been hung. Instead, he was sent off to terrorize. There is much more of course, but I’ll move on.

In # 6, Rohan writes, “The Iranians seem to be maintaining their 100 plus TOP AQ detainees as a bargaining chip.” Both George Tenet in his book At the Center of the Storm and Dick Armitage in a recent interview with PBS confirmed that they asked the Iranians to turn over the al Qaeda leaders on their soil in conversations held in 2002 and 2003. At first, the Iranians pretended that they didn’t have them. Then, when they were pressed with evidence, they finally admitted some of them might be there, but they were still not helpful. Then, the Iranians pretended they were going to try the al Qaeda leaders, but of course they never did. It is true that there are reports that Iran turned over some al Qaeda suspects, but these were low-level flunkies and none of the upper echelon of al Qaeda was turned over. And why would they? The Iranians have been working with the likes of Saif al-Adel, who was trained by Hezbollah in the early 1990’s, for almost two decades now. This is not the pattern of behavior one would expect if the Iranians were trying to use these al Qaeda operatives merely as a “bargaining chip.” In fact, there is no reliable evidence that the Iranians really want to bargain at all – at least those who are really in power and working with al Qaeda don’t. The “bargaining chip” theory is, in reality, one invented by analysts searching for excuses for Iran’s behavior.

There is much more to all of this, but I hope readers get a sense of why the debate over terrorism, al Qaeda, and al Qaeda’s allies has become so confused. I like to stick to the facts and not make excuses for our terrorist enemies, while leaving open the debate about how best to defeat them. Unfortunately, it is difficult to have that discussion when expert opinion is so malleable.

FP: Rohan Gunaratna, I need to let you go again here.

Gunaratna: Joscelyn has been meticulous in his documentation. I have no doubt that al Qaeda is present and active in Iran. All our research and review of intelligence from Western and other services support that judgement. However, we have no evidence to suggest that the Iranian government - IRGC, MOIS, etc - is sponsoring Al Qaeda. All the indications are that Iran is keeping them under "house arrest." At a future date Iran may use them but at this point of time I have not seen any credible evidence either in the open or the classified literature of official Iranian support for Al Qaeda.

Yes, Joscelyn is correct in stating that I claimed that Iran and the Lebanese Hezbollah worked with Al Qaeda. But that was before 1996 when Al Qaeda HQ was in Sudan. After Al Qaeda relocated to Afghanistan in May 1996, Al Qaeda maintained an extensive presence in Iran and even ties with the intelligence service of Iran. But Iran did not provide any official support to Al Qaeda.

The German service rightly concluded that Abu Musab al Zarqawi was operating out of Iran. I like to inform you that before Zarqawi became a well known terrorist in Iraq, Iran arrested Zarqawi and released him. However, the German service is wrong to assess that Zarqawi was provided safe haven by the Iranians. Until this date, Iran has never provided official support to Tawhid Wal Jihad (now Al Qaeda in Iraq). In fact, after Zarqawi bombed the most holy Shia shrines in Iraq, both MOIS and IRGC supported Shia groups to hunt Zarqawi and his associates.

Let me make a concluding observation. A head of a highly respected Western Intelligence service that has access to all source Western intelligence once told me that Saddam must have known that Zarqawi was operating out of Iraq. Citing intelligence that Zarqawi received treatment in a Baghdad hospital, the head of the service said that Saddam "must have known" and implied "tolerated" Zarqawi. As a researcher of terrorism for over 20 years, I would like to share with you my response to the head of that service. Based on my own debriefing of detainees in Camp Cropper, the high value detention centre in Iraq, I said that al Qaeda and its groups operated out of Iraq (and Baghdad) but they received no official support from Saddam.

Based on the Western intelligence community's recent assessments, I would like to share with all of you that Al Qaeda is operating out of Iran but it is not receiving any official Iranian support as yet. In my opinion, the way the Western nations are approaching Iran over the nuclear issue, this may change. After having suffered from the US invasion of Iraq, we should be careful and cautious.

FP: Al Qaeda is operating out of Iran but it is not receiving any official Iranian support? Is this a joke? We have two entities that despise Israel, the West and the U.S. and both wage war on Israel, the West and the U.S. One of the entities operates from within one of those entities. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what is going on and we don’t need “official” announcements mouthed by Islamo-Fascists to figure it out.

Michael Ledeen, go ahead.

Ledeen: On the question of Iranian support for the embassy bombings (far beyond the question of the provision of explosives), we have the first-hand testimony of one of the AQ participants. It's quoted in "The Iranian Time Bomb." Maybe Dr Gunaratna is drawing a distinction (in my opinion a distinction without a difference) between "Iran" and "Hezbollah," because there is abundant testimony about Hezbollah training of al Qaeda. Apparently Osama loved the technique of big simultaneous attacks, and wanted training to be able to do it effectively. He got it, and it was useful in Dar es Salaam and Nairobi.

I think I was the first American to write about Zarqawi-in-Iran, although maybe Marc Hosenbahl's stuff in "Newsweek" came earlier. Both of us based our articles on German and Italian court transcripts that showed Zarqawi giving orders to his people on satellite phone calls from Tehran.

I don't think anyone can seriously challenge that documentation, which includes hundreds of phone calls in both directions, and intercepted letters, etc. So anyone who wishes to argue that Zarqawi somehow became an independent, will have to explain that. It seems hard to explain, but I suppose it's possible.

The policy question is of course the big one, and I'm grateful to General Pacepa, my friend and mentor, for his kind words. I don't know if it's possible to catalyze an Iranian revolution "in time," and indeed I'm inclined to believe that Iran already has nuclear weapons. When Ahmadi-Nezhad says "we've got three thousand spinning centrifuges" I always think of the magician who says "I will now make the rabbit disappear," which means he's already done it. Why should we believe Ahmadi-Nezhad, a notorious trickster? He may have a hundred thousand centrifuges by now.

But I remember the Cold War, when all the deep thinkers believed it was impossible to bring down the Soviet Union, but as Galileo said one day, "but it moves." That powerful empire came down. Conditions for revolution are far more favorable in Iran today than they were in the Soviet Union in the late eighties. Why not try? It's not only strategically more attractive, but morally right.

Finally, "amen" to Steve Schippert. He's got it exactly right. The "Iran problem" is that they have been waging war against us, and killing our people, ever since 1979. We must respond. The nuclear issue just raises the ante, it adds urgency to what was always the central issue.

Schippert: Dr. Gunaratna - whom I hold great respect for - surprises me. Reading through his points followed by Tom Joscelyn's rebuttal and Dr. Gunaratna's rejoinder is enough to make your head spin. Not because I am - or any reader is - a dolt incapable of following. But because I am almost lost as to his point even if we cede him each point made. I believe that attacking Iran is a bad idea. But his arguments read as to leave the impression that Iran has yet to do anything warranting a response. That's a far cry from arguing the counter-productiveness of any US military counter, which again is what I believe he means.

I'll try to avoid another lengthy rebuttal. However, I will make my point using two simple examples.

Dr. Gunaratna says that "[t]here are NO indication that the Iranian government has supplied EFPs to al-Qaida in Iraq or Afghanistan. To shia groups in Iraq, yes." Flying over at 10,000 feet, I quite honestly could not care less to whom Iran supplied the EFP's that have been used to kill so many of my brothers in arms. I care that Iran supplied the one weapon in use that penetrates our armor and kills them. Period. Muqtada's (or is it Iran's) Jaish-al-Mahdi, Badr Brigades, al-Qaeda in Iraq, Ansar al-Sunna or the local cobbler. When it comes to Iranian complicity in the killing of yet more Americans who have yet to breach Iranian territory, it doesn't matter much. Does it?

Dr. Gunaratna makes a good point in stating that the "Iranians seem to be maintaining their 100plus TOP AQ detainees as a bargaining chip." However, for context, these 100-plus top al-Qaeda terrorists, including Sayf al-Adel and Usama's son Saad are most certainly not held in the infamous Evin prison along with the violent and barbarous likes of student protesters, seditious professors and murderous journalists. There's something to be said for that, regardless of what proof one sees or does not see in active participation in ongoing planning and attacks.

In short, to afford the world's premier state sponsor of terrorism the game of nuance is a fool's errand.

The discussion should not be made or perceived as one of whether to counter-attack the Iranian terror machine, but how to counter attack it. That, I believe, risks being lost in this discussion.

A few things are certain as the terror persists and the race to nuclear arms continues hardly abated. The clock has run out on the ill-conducted Radio Farda and VOA information campaigns and it is running out on limited international and unilateral sanction regimes. The IAEA is incapable of monitoring a recalcitrant Iranian nuclear program, partly because it lacks any enforcement mechanism and partly because it lacks the will. It was after all from ElBaradei's own lips that came the words, "I have no brief other than to make sure that we don't go into another war or we go crazy into killing each other." Silly us for thinking it was to investigate and inspect.

And we are fast squandering time that would afford alternative ways of effectively counter-attacking the Iranian regime and altering its chosen path. We may one day soon find ourselves left with no option but military attack. And I am quite certain that even then, it will still not be the American people emerging from their churches, synagogues and mosques led in chants of "Death to Iran!"

As Michael Ledeen said, "Conditions for revolution are far more favorable in Iran today than they were in the Soviet Union in the late eighties. Why not try?" It is shameful that we've done nothing to support the Iranian people but give them two radio stations that provide all the protection of shielding Manhattan with an umbrella. Well, to be fair, make that two umbrellas.

When will we ever embrace them and support them? After all, I once heard a wise man say that it's not only strategically more attractive, but morally right. Isn't it?

McInerney: Well I must say the issue is very clear to me after a most articulate discussion and counter discussion to Dr. Gunaratna’s position by Gen. Pacepa, Steve, Tom and Michael.

Simply stated we do something to change the Iranian regime or we do nothing and accept as inevitable that the Mullahs will go nuclear. This is unacceptable. So now the question is how we prevent them from doing it.

Simply restated, it is now time to aggressively support covertly the Iranian people taking their country back. I believe more aggressive economic action like getting the UAE to gradually tighten up on refining petrol for Iran -- which is now at 40% to down to 20% or lower plus the European banks cutting off all loans and the World Bank immediately stopping the $800 million pending loan to Iran will start the removal of the Mullahs.

We may be short of or out of time for an aggressive Information Operations (IO) campaign but economic disintegration of an already fragile economy is not out of the possibility. It will have to be a coalition of the willing as the UN is hopeless. The Mullahs are not going to be deterred as Gen. Pacepa said so well. This coalition of the willing will be difficult to muster but even more difficult will be this administration’s and Congress’s ability to understand that it is Bite the bullet time.

We will need some new military leadership at CENTCOM as the current commander is not up to the task and I am not sure if SEC State is as well. The President should have his confidence restored with his bold and courageous leadership on the Surge being reinforced with the dramatic results in Iraq coming in daily.

We still have a tough fight in front of us but aggressive actions and the right strategy will work. This is tough business and the timid appeasers will only dig a deeper hole. Iran’s current leadership will continue to destabilize the region if we continue to appease them. Let’s help the Iranian people take their country back now.

Pacepa: Appeasement is a road to disaster. This is the main conclusion I have drawn from our long discussion about Iran. And this is exactly what Michael Ledeen has been saying about Iran for the last 10 years.

On September 30, 1938, Neville Chamberlain stepped in front of No. 10 Downing Street and solemnly stated: “My good friends, for the second time in our history, a British Prime Minister has returned from Germany bringing peace with honor. I believe it is ‘peace for our time.’ Go home and get a nice, quiet sleep.”[i] One year later Hitler plunged us into World War II, and 405,399 Americans died in order to eradicate Fascism and the Holocaust.

Ahmadinejad is a contemporary Hitler, who wants to spread Islamo-Fascism and generate another Holocaust. After his 2005 election, Ahmadinejad stated: “Thanks to the blood of the martyrs, a new Islamic revolution has arisen and the Islamic revolution of 1384 [the current Iranian year] will, if God wills, cut off the roots of injustice in the world.” He also said that “the wave of the Islamic revolution” would soon “reach the entire world.”

If Hitler had had nuclear weapons, we would be all speaking German. Michael Ledeen’s new book, The Iranian Time Bomb is a superb guide on how to deal with Ahmadinejad. We used those same guidelines with Ceausescu, and they worked. Now Romania is a NATO member.

In 1972, Ceausescu decided to build nukes, and I became his Nuclear Tsar. Four years later I broke with communism, and I was able to kill Ceausescu’s nuclear ambitions because he was just designing the centrifuges needed to enrich Uranium. Ahmadinejad has at least 3,000 centrifuges, and he can no longer be blocked. Only a McInerney-style surgical strike could stop him.

In 2003, President George W. Bush remarked that the British prime minister “has got cojones.” The president was referring to Tony Blair’s courageous support for our war in Iraq despite mounting opposition from his own party. One can only hope that America’s politicians will have the cojones to deal with Ahmadinejad’s nuclear insanity.