home > by publication type > backgrounders > State Sponsors: Iran
Email
Updated: August 2007
The U.S. State Department has called Iran the world’s “most active state sponsor of terrorism.” U.S. officials say Iran continues to provide funding, weapons, training, and sanctuary to numerous terrorist groups based in the Middle East and elsewhere, posing a security concern to the international community. Iran’s declarations that it has successfully enriched uranium and developed new missile technology have heightened alarm in the United States and a growing number of other states. Iran asserts its rights under an international treaty to pursue nuclear power and that it is only interested in nuclear energy for peaceful purposes. But it has faced growing sanctions, through the UN Security Council as well as international financial bodies, out of concern over its motives.
In March 2006, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said, “Iran has been the country that has been in many ways a kind of central banker for terrorism in important regions like Lebanon through Hezbollah in the Middle East, in the Palestinian Territories, and we have deep concerns about what Iran is doing in the south of Iraq.” U.S. Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell told CFR.org in June 2007 there is “overwhelming evidence” that Iran supports terrorists in Iraq and “compelling” evidence that it does the same in Afghanistan. For these reasons, news reports in August 2007 cited U.S. officials as saying that the United States would consider adding Iran’s Revolutionary Guard to the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations. Iran has repeatedly denied involvement in helping attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Since a 1979 revolution led by Ayatollah Khomeini toppled the U.S.-backed regime of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the country has been governed by Shiite Muslim clerics committed to a strict interpretation of Islamic law. Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei serves as commander-in-chief of the armed and police forces; the head of Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB), the state ministry in control of television and radio; and leader of the country’s judiciary. The Supreme National Security Council (SNSC), currently headed by Ali Larijani, doubles as Iran’s top negotiator on nuclear issues and enjoys close relations with Ayatollah Khamenei, who has final say over all SNSC decisions. The SNSC is composed mostly of top officials from the ministries of foreign affairs, intelligence, and interior, as well as military leaders from the army and the Revolutionary Guards, Iran’s main security apparatus formed in the wake of the 1979 Islamic Revolution. The Revolutionary Guards are reported to be training, funding, and equipping Shiite militias in southern Iraq.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the popularly elected president, has aroused controversy by calling for Israel’s elimination but his power is checked by the Supreme Leader. He has vigorously supported the country’s nuclear energy program while denying any military connection, and has emerged as a strong anti-American voice globally.
In December 2005, Ali Larijani, secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, told Agence France Presse that Iran had extradited all foreign members of al-Qaeda, and tried any Iranian suspects. Previously, Iran had refused to publicly identify or extradite the detainees on security grounds.
U.S. officials say Iran mostly backs Islamist groups, including the Lebanese Shiite militants of Hezbollah (which Iran helped found in the 1980s) and such Palestinian terrorist groups as Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. A few months after Hamas won the Palestinian Authority (PA) elections in early 2006, Iran pledged $50 million to the near-bankrupt PA. The United States, among other nations, has cut off aid to the PA because of Hamas’ terrorist ties.
Iran is suspected of encouraging Hezbollah’s July 2006 attack on Israel to deflect international attention from its nuclear weapons program. Iran was also reportedly involved in a Hezbollah-linked January 2002 attempt to smuggle a boatload of arms to the PA. Some reports also suggest that Iran’s interference in Iraq has included funding, safe transit, and arms to insurgent leaders like Muqtada al-Sadr and his forces.
The U.S. government first listed Iran as a terrorist sponsor in 1984. Among its activities have been the following:
The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency says Iran possesses chemicals that can induce bleeding, blistering, and choking, as well as the bombs and artillery shells to deliver these agents. U.S. officials say Iran also has an active biological weapons program, driven in part by its acquisition of “dual-use” technologies—supplies and machinery that can be put to either harmless or deadly uses. Weapons experts say the Iranian programs started after the country's forces were struck by Iraqi chemical attacks in the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s.
With help from Russia, Iran is building a nuclear power plant, but U.S. officials say that Iran is more interested in developing a nuclear weapon than in producing nuclear energy. In April 2006, President Ahmadinejad announced Iran had successfully enriched uranium. Experts say Iran could have enough highly enriched uranium (HEU) to produce a bomb in three to ten years. The international community has called on Iran to stop its nuclear program.
Yes. Iran has hundreds of Scuds and other short-range ballistic missiles. It has also manufactured and flight-tested the Shahab-3 missile, which has a range of 1,300 kilometers—enough to hit Israel or Saudi Arabia. Moreover, Iran is developing missiles with even greater range, including one that it says will be used to launch satellites but that experts say could also be used as an intercontinental ballistic missile. In March 2006, Iran claimed it had successfully tested a missile capable of evading radar and hitting multiple targets.
Daniel Poneman, senior fellow at the Forum for International Policy and former special assistant to the president and senior director for nonproliferation and export controls at the National Security Council, said at a CFR symposium on Iran that “They could use trucks for delivery systems. I think just as the bomb-making is easier than getting the HEU, the delivery is much easier than making a bomb.”
Russia, China, and North Korea. Pakistan may also have been a supplier, though Pakistani and Iranian officials deny this.
Weigh in on this issue by emailing CFR.org.
To order Task Force reports, Council Special Reports, and Critical Policy Choices, please call, fax, or order online from our distributor, the Brookings Institution Press: phone +1.800.537.5487, fax +1.410.516.6998.
For information on other reports that are not for sale, or for general publications information, please call +1.212.434.9516 or email publications@cfr.org.
Start-Up Nation addresses the trillion-dollar question: How is it that Israel—a country of 7.1 million, only sixty years old, surrounded by enemies— produces more start-up companies than large, peaceful, and stable nations like Japan, China, India, Korea, Canada, and the UK? With the insights of geopolitical experts and investors, the authors examine this nation’s adversity-driven culture to answer this question and offer prescriptions for a global economy on the rebound.
In Forces of Fortune, Vali Nasr presents a paradigm-changing revelation that will transform the understanding of the Muslim world at large. He reveals that there is a vital but unseen rising force in the Islamic world—a new business-minded middle class—that is building a vibrant new Muslim world economy and that holds the key to winning the cold war against Iran and extremists.
In Cuba: What Everyone Needs to Know, Julia E. Sweig presents a remarkably accessible portrait of Cuba's unique place on the world stage over the past fifty years, including its internal politics, its often fraught relationship with the United States, and its shifting relationship with the global community.
Complete list of CFR Books
The report of this bipartisan Task Force of distinguished leaders and experts represents a strong consensus on the importance of repairing America's immigration policy. It makes the case that maintaining America's political and economic leadership depends on attracting talented and hard-working immigrants, and on securing the country's borders in a smart, effective, and humane way.
This report finds that nuclear weapons will remain a fundamental element of U.S. national security in the near term, and makes recommendations on how to ensure the safety, security, and reliability of the U.S. deterrent nuclear force, prevent nuclear terrorism, and strengthen the nuclear nonproliferation regime.
About Independent Task Forces at CFR
Complete list of Task Force reports
Identifying international threats and acting on them may be the most difficult job for U.S. policymakers. This report
provides an actionable road map for managing international threats before they erupt into crises and makes a strong case that preventive action is not a luxury but a necessity.
For more than a decade, the United States has mostly watched from the sidelines as Asian countries organize themselves into an alphabet soup of new multilateral groups. In this report, the authors review the relationship between pan-Asian and trans-Pacific institutions and suggest policy guidelines for a new U.S. approach to this new Asian landscape.
Complete list of Council Special Reports
To request permission to reprint or reuse CFR material, please fill out this permissions request form (PDF), referring to the instructions on page 1.
Copyright 2009 by the Council on Foreign Relations. All Rights Reserved.