February 15, 2019
by Warren L. Nelson
The annual US intelligence report to Congress says Iran is indeed improving its military capabilities, but seeks to avoid any armed conflict with Israel
It predicts that protests will continue through 2019 but will not have any major impact on developments, while hardliners will be “emboldened” to challenge centrists even more in order to foil their efforts at reform.
It describes growing Iranian mastery of naval and missile technology, but not other military technologies.
The annual “Worldwide Threat Assessment” was released January 29. It is a report on threats to the United States as agreed to by all the 17 intelligence agencies operated by the United States.
It was presented to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence by Daniel Coats, the director of national intelligence, who was accompanied by others from the intelligence community.
Under questioning by committee members, Gina Haspel, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, said Iran is still abiding by the terms of the 2015 nuclear deal despite the US pullout from the multinational agreement.
“At the moment, technically, they are in compliance” with the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), Haspel said.
“I think the most recent information is the Iranians are considering taking steps that would lessen their adherence to JCPOA as they seek to pressure the Europeans to come through with the investment and trade benefits that Iran hoped to gain from the deal,” she said.
“They are making some preparations that would increase their ability to take a step back [from the JCPOA] if they make that decision,” she said.
The report contradicted President Trump on Iran—and just about every other major issue. It saw major threats where Trump sees none, as, for example, from Russia. It saw no threat where Trump sees the biggest trouble, on the border with Mexico.
The day after the testimony, Trump lashed out at the intelligence chiefs—people he himself appointed.
“The Intelligence people seem to be extremely passive and naive when it comes to the dangers of Iran,” Trump tweeted. “They are wrong!”
He continued: “When I became president Iran was making trouble all over the Middle East, and beyond. Since ending the terrible Iran Nuclear Deal, they are MUCH different, but a source of potential danger and conflict. They are testing Rockets (last week) and more, and are coming very close to the edge. There [sic] economy is now crashing, which is the only thing holding them back. Be careful of Iran. Perhaps Intelligence should go back to school!”
Trump’s entire response related to Iran, where the intelligence community was indeed “weaker” than the president. Trump said nothing about North Korea, however, where the intelligence community was definitely stronger, saying Pyongyang “is unlikely to give up all of its nuclear weapons,” despite the president’s claim to have solved the problems with North Korea.
In the Iran section of the report, the intelligence community started off by citing “Iran’s adversarial behavior” as a core problem. But Trump’s tweet asserted the intelligence specialists didn’t see Iran as adversarial, completely misrepresenting what US intelligence said.
The intelligence report went into some detail:
“Iran’s regional ambitions and improved military capabilities almost certainly will threaten US interests in the coming year, driven by Tehran’s perception of increasing US, Saudi, and Israeli hostility, as well as continuing border insecurity, and the influence of hardliners.”
But despite all the speculation on an Iran-Israel war, the threat assessment concludes: “We assess that Iran seeks to avoid a major armed conflict with Israel.” Oddly, it did not say whether it thought Israel seeks to avoid a major conflict with Iran.
But, it said, “Israeli strikes that result in Iranian casualties increase the likelihood of Iranian conventional retaliation against Israel.” Shortly after the report was released, Iran denied that any Iranians had been killed in a recent series of Israeli attacks on Iranian bases inside Syria, despite reports from Syrians that a dozen Iranians were killed. That may reflect an Iranian regime desire to quiet hardliners and lessen pressure on the regime to take retaliatory action against Israel.
Israel, meanwhile, sees the Iranian threat as much less today than a year ago. The day before Coats released his report, Nitzan Alon, who has led a special Israeli government project to coordinate all issues related to Iran, said Israel’s operations in Syria have “to a great extent” succeeded in blocking Iran’s goals of establishing a permanent military presence in Syria.
“To a great extent, we halted Iranian aspirations in Syria. There is a significant gap between where the Iranians wanted to be and where they are right now,” he told a conference in Israel.
Last year, Alon warned that the chances of war on Israel’s northern border were greater than ever before due to the victories of Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad.
He said then: “The Iranians and Hezbollah, who are backing [Assad], are getting freed up to start building their power. We are not allowing these things to happen without our involvement. We are acting and will continue to act.”
On domestic politics in Iran, the US intelligence report concludes: “Regime hardliners will be more emboldened to challenge rival centrists by undermining their domestic reform efforts and pushing a more confrontational posture toward the United States and its allies….
“Nationwide protests, mostly focused on economic grievances, have continued to draw attention to the need for major economic reforms and unmet expectations for most Iranians. We expect more unrest in the months ahead, although the protests are likely to remain uncoordinated and lacking central leadership or broad support from major ethnic and political groups. We assess that Tehran is prepared to take more aggressive security measures in response to renewed unrest while preferring to use nonlethal force.” In the past year, the regime has only used police to deal with most protests, calling out the Basij and Pasdaran when protests have gotten out of hand and government buildings have been firebombed.
On the core issue of the economy, the report says, “Rohani’s ability to reform the economy remains limited, given pervasive corruption, a weak banking sector, and a business climate that discourages foreign investment and trade.” This reflects a common view of economists that the “system” is so bad that reforms have little impact.
On the military front, the report says the Iranian change in policy in August 2017 to restrain its Pasdar maritime forces and avoid further challenges to the US Navy may come to an end. Iran, it said, “may increase harassment of US and allied warships and merchant vessels in the Persian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz, and Gulf of Oman.”
The report took note of Iranian efforts to develop better military equipment to challenge the US and was not dismissive of those efforts as are many analysts in the private sector. However, the report only spoke of naval and missile improvements, and ignored new planes and tanks, suggesting that US intelligence doesn’t take Iran’s air forces and land forces seriously.
The report specifically cited last year’s Iranian missile attacks on a Kurdish group in Iraq and the Islamic State in Syria, saying those strikes were “demonstrating the increasing precision of Iran’s missiles.” Israel had said the missiles fired at the Islamic State missed their targets. The report’s commentary telegraphs that the US does not agree with Israel.
On the nuclear issue, the report said flatly: “Iran is not currently undertaking the key nuclear weapons-development activities we judge necessary to produce a nuclear device.” This has been the conclusion of the intelligence community ever since the Bush Administration when it surprised the world by saying Iran had put its nuclear weapons program on the back burner in 2003 after the US invaded Iraq.
But the new report said it believes Iran is developing chemical warfare agents to be used for offensive purposes.
The intelligence commun-ity’s view on relations with North Korea and Syria were also conspicuously at odds with what Trump has said about those countries.
Coats told members of the committee that the Islamic State continues to pose a threat in Syria. (Trump, in announcing plans to withdraw US troops from Syria, said, “We have defeated ISIS in Syria.”) Coats said North Korea is unlikely to give up its nuclear weapons. (Trump has said the country no longer poses a threat, and that he “solved” the crisis with Pyongyang.)
It’s not the first time Trump has clashed with his own intelligence officials. Late last year, the president refused to accept the CIA’s assessment that there was strong evidence Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was responsible for the gruesome murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi, and declined to sanction the Saudis for the killing.
Trump has also repeatedly resisted the conclusion of the 17 US intelligence agencies that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election with the goal of boosting his election chances. The president has instead appeared to side with Russian President Vladimir Putin, saying he believed Putin’s denials over the assessment of the American intelligence community.
The intelligence report was startling in that it laid out so many threats to the United States that were almost the direct opposite of what Trump talks about. Trump has talked about three main threats during his presidency. He talks mostly about threats from the migrant “invasion” across the Mexican border that he sees bringing terrorism, crime and drugs into the United States. The threat report never even mentions the southern border. Trump also talks about the threat of unequal trade agreements. The threat report says nothing about trade at all. Third, Trump talks about the threat of Iran getting nuclear weapons. But the intelligence report dismissed a nuclear threat and said Iran’s main threat to the US was in the form of terrorism, conventional warfare and cyber attacks.
The report said Russia and China provide the greatest threats to the United States through such initiatives as cyber attacks and efforts at influencing US society through “fake news.” Trump ignores that.
The report says the terrorism threat comes chiefly from Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. Trump ignores Al-Qaeda and boasts that he has defeated the Islamic State.
The report sees major threats from climate change, which Trump calls “fake news,” and from new diseases that are developing, which Trump doesn’t mention.
The annual report’s main new conclusion this year is that Russia and China are now cooperating to challenge the United States and the liberal world order. “China and Russia are more aligned than at any point since the mid-1950s…. We anticipate that they will collaborate to counter US objectives, taking advantage of rising doubts in some places about the liberal democratic model.”
In a modest swipe at Trump, it said, “Some US allies and partners are seeking greater independence from Washington in response to their perceptions of changing US policies on security and trade.” Trump ignores all that.
As for the threat of terrorism inside the United States, the report is dismissive of the fear-mongering of many anti-Muslim groups. It said the US has a “well-integrated Muslim population” with few members acting against the American people. In fact, it said, “The frequency of attacks most likely will be very low compared to most other forms of criminal violence in the US.”
The report, in essence, paints a picture of Trump sailing the ship of state through darkened seas ignoring the icebergs the intelligence community says lie ahead while shouting about icebergs that do not exist.
Coats, as director of national intelligence, does not lead any spy agency. He is in charge of coordinating the work of the 17 intelligence agencies. A few agencies are big, like the CIA, which focuses on political intelligence, and the Defense Intelligence Agency, which focuses on military intelligence. Most of the others are highly specialized, like the Drug Enforcement Agency, which enforces US narcotics laws and has an intelligence branch focused on narcotics. The Treasury Department has a financial intelligence branch, which is heavily engaged in watching Iran’s economy so as to make sanctions bite harder.
