The Fierce Urgency of Now: A CIA Covert Agent On Iran

Reza Kahlili, the pseudonym of an Iranian member of IRGC who, for over a decade, worked as an agent of the CIA, has some very stark warnings for America concerning Iran. He recently spoke in an interview at the Daily Beast. Here is the meat of the interview:

. . . DB: What were your thoughts being in the United States watching what was going on in the post-election turmoil in this past summer?

RK: Well I was very hopeful. I mean, hundreds of thousands of people were coming out on to the streets. This was unprecedented. But I think that the West lost a great opportunity. They should have been more vocal. They should have come out from the early days. This theory that if you say anything in support of the uprising it’s going to be interpreted by the Iranian government as interference by the West… I mean no matter what the West does, they will always be blamed. The uprising is not over, but Iranians need leadership and [Ahmadinejad’s main challenger] Mir Hossein Mousavi, so far, has not been capable of being a strong leader in guiding the people. So you know I’m still honestly hopeful. People are tired of this system. You never know. It could be coming to a point that we see major change.

DB: What do you see Iran looking like five years from now?

RK: Obviously no one can see into the future, but there’s one thing that I believe: If the West sticks with sanctions, and its mild approach to trying to change the behavior of the Iranian leadership, Iran will become a nuclear power. If Iran becomes a nuclear power, if it becomes a nuclear-armed country, the Iranian people are going to pay a very, very heavy price. And you could see major destruction in Iran. Now I hope to God that doesn’t happen.

DB: What do you mean? Be specific. What do you mean by major destruction?

RK: I think Iran accessing a nuclear bomb, it is going to cause major war with Iran. And I believe the West is moving toward that by just dragging this thing along. This is going to come to a head, and war could break out. And I hope that’s not going to be the case. But if they become nuclear-armed, I think the Iranian people are going to pay a very heavy price.

DB: What’s the option? I mean you keep saying that the West isn’t doing enough—what is the option? What should they be doing?

RK: Look, if you can’t deal with the Guards right now, how are you going to deal with them if they have a nuclear bomb? If they have nuclear-armed warheads and if they cover the whole world? What are you going to do? Study the clerics, the leadership behavior for the previous decades, they’ve taken the world hostage many times over, and they have won. Now just imagine that they have a nuclear bomb. The Saudi kingdom would be in jeopardy. Iraq… forget about it, it’s already under control of Iran. They’re helping the Taliban. In Lebanon, Hezbollah is ruling. Jordan could be in danger, Syria could be empowered, Israel could be threatened day and night, Hamas would be empowered. You could see nuclear proliferation moving into Venezuela. It is going to be unimaginable.

We just don’t know how dangerous the consequences would be. It’s serious. This is a serious situation, and the West is not dealing with it the way they should. One thing they could do very simply is cut off shipping lines—all airspace and shipping lines closed to everything coming into Iran and going out of Iran.

DB: You know that according to all international laws what you are describing—the cutting off of shipping lines—is an act of war.

RK: Well, let it be an act of war. You’ve got two choices: Either take out the Guard right now, or wait until they have a bomb. It’s a matter of who takes the more serious step. Let it be an act of war and let’s see what Iran does. Give them a deadline. No one has taken a serious stand to see if they will back down, and unless you do, they’re going to become a nuclear-armed state. If Iran shoots one bullet [at U.S. troops], we can control the Tehran skies. I mean, I believe people will bring this government down, once they know that the West is serious about it and they don’t have to fire a single bullet. So the decision comes to this, and this is the bottom line: Do we accept Iran as a nuclear-armed state or not? Anything else is just total hot air. It is just one question, do we accept it or not?

During the campaign, Obama used the phrase "the fierce urgency of now," to explain why America could not afford to wait for him to gain sufficient experience to justify his election to the Presidency. But the phrase more aptly applies to the problem of Iran. And Obama's complete lack of experience is showing.

Does anyone think that Obama is up to this fight? He talked the talk during the campaign, but he has wholly dropped the ball on this single most important issue of foreign policy since becoming President. This is history repeating itself, with Iran as Nazi Germany and Obama as Neville Chamberlain. Hitler could have been stopped in the late 1930's with minimal loss of life. Chamberlain, in his effort to avoid war, set the stage for a loss of life in the tens of millions during WWII. Let us hope beyond reason that Obama's folly is not as severe.